He ran past the Jordan Line up to Paradise Lane, but he could see that the church and library were as empty as the rest of the town.
“Kady,” he whispered, fear running through his body. Whatever had happened to the people of this town had also happened to Kady. Turning abruptly, he began to run down the street to get to his horse. He must save Kady!
He was in such a blind panic that he ran into Ned Wallace without seeing him, sending them both flying, and the little beer barrel on Ned’s shoulder went crashing, its contents spilling on the boardwalk.
“Now look what you’ve done!” Ned yelled. “Kady needed that, and now what am I gonna to tell her? Damnation! but I don’t think there are any more full barrels.”
Cole had fallen hard against the horse rail, and what with various injuries he had sustained over the last few days, it took him a moment to regain his awareness. By the time Cole’s head cleared, Ned had reentered the saloon.
Cole threw open the swinging doors, but Ned was nowhere in sight. “What the hell is going on?” he bellowed. He received no answer, but he did hear noises in the back.
There was a room on the back of the saloon that was usually packed full of bottles and barrels, but now every shelf was empty. A trapdoor he didn’t know existed was thrown up, and at the bottom Cole could see a light. He lost no time climbing down the ladder, where he saw Ned tossing about empty wooden crates, becoming more frustrated by the second.
“That was the last one,” Ned said angrily. “Now what will Kady do? Today is pasta day, and she wanted to make a sauce with beer and cream. So how the hell is she gonna do that now?” Ned stopped ranting long enough to glare at Cole as though he’d committed some unforgivable sin.
“I guess it will be up to me to tell her,” Ned said in disgust, then stepped past Cole to go up the ladder.
Cole, too bewildered to move, stared at the ladder. “What the hell is ‘pasta’?” he said under his breath, then grabbed the lantern Ned had left behind and went up the ladder.
He caught Ned just as he was leaving the back door of the saloon. “So help me, Wallace, if you don’t tell me what’s going on, I’ll—”
“You’ll what?” Ned said fiercely. “Make me miss pasta day? And the mesquite is ready today, and I’m in charge of candyin’ the violets, and Juan says the second risin’ of the brioche is my job, and—”
He stopped because Cole had pinned him against a wall and was holding a knife to his throat. “You aren’t going anywhere. You’re going to sit down and tell me everything. Do you understand me? If you ever want to see this man Pasta again, you’ll do what I say.”
Ned gave Cole a look of
disgust, then muttered something about pasta not being a person and Cole probably couldn’t tell puff pastry from strudel dough, but he went back into the empty saloon and sat down. Taking out his big pocket watch, he propped it open on the table. “Ten minutes; that’s all I can spare.”
“You can spare all the time that’s needed. I want to know everything that’s going on, and to start, you can tell me where everyone is.”
Ned started to rise. “Why don’t we just go out to Kady’s Place and you can see for yourself? That way we won’t waste any more of my time.”
Cole had to count to ten before replying to that one. “And just where is ‘Kady’s Place’?”
“The Jordan Ranch, you know, it’s—” Ned broke off as he seemed to realize for the first time to whom he was talking. Sitting back down, he drew a deep breath. “A few things have happened in the days you were away.”
“You know, I figured that out about two minutes after I entered town. So now, why don’t you tell me just exactly what it is that has happened?” Cole thought that if Kady was in any danger, he wanted to know its exact nature so he could plan how to save her. In the time since he’d arrived in town, he’d prepared himself for anything, whether it was natural disasters, illness, massacres, or even the return of the plagues of Egypt. What he was not prepared for was the story that Ned Wallace began to tell him, reluctantly at first, but with increasing gusto as he watched Cole’s face, the eyes widening and the jaw dropping down further with every word Ned spoke.
Ned wasn’t a very good storyteller, as he tended to start in the middle of a story, go in one direction, then backtrack and go in another. Rather like he was trying to draw a spider, Cole thought as he tried to piece together what Ned was telling him.
It seemed that Kady had decided to occupy herself during her husband’s absence by cooking for the whole town. When Cole first heard this, he’d smiled indulgently, but as the story expanded, he heard things that he didn’t like.
“She kissed who?” Cole asked.
“Hog’s Breath Howie,” Ned said, by now having lit a pipe and drawing deeply on the stem.
Cole was aghast. “But he offered two hundred dollars to any of Les’s girls who’d kiss him, and none of them would do it. That man’s breath has been known to fell horses.”
“It didn’t seem to bother Kady, not when he pulled the tarp off that wagon and she saw them pots and pans.”
It seemed that three days after Cole left town, Kady had hired five drivers with wagons to go to Denver to buy cooking things for her. “Things nobody had ever heard of,” Ned said, sounding as though Kady was buying ingredients for a witch’s brew. “But of course we all know what they are now,” he said smugly. He paused long enough to make sure he had Cole’s attention. “She wanted things like semolina and olive oil and star anise.”
Cole leaned closer to Ned, his eyes narrowed. “You want to tell me why my wife was kissing Hog’s Breath Howie?”
“I’m gettin’ to it; don’t rush me.” Ned took another long draw on his pipe. Having the owner of the town at his mercy was a dream come true. “Kady gave instructions to the drivers that they were to bring back all kinds of food that they had never heard of. If they saw an Italian family or Chinese or any other color or religion, whatever, the driver was to pay very high prices for—”
“Why high prices?” Cole interrupted.