Written on the Wind (The Blackstone Legacy #2)(21)

It fortified him enough to walk behind the saloon, where he leaned against the back wall and drew a steadying breath. This was going to be hard, but he’d done it before and survived. He could do it again. He sank to his knees.

Dear Lord, he silently prayed, this tiny piece of stone might save my friend. Both of us are unworthy, but if I live through this, I will forever fight in your name to honor your son and your will. In Jesus’ name I pray.

He stayed on his knees as he reached up behind his head, knife at the ready. The lumpy scar was easy to find, and he braced himself as he set the blade against it.

His yells echoed down the alleyway as he dug out the diamond.



Temujin’s days as a bandit were over. The doctor had amputated his right foot and three toes on his left. He would hobble on a cane for the rest of his life, but he was alive.

Dimitri stood at the foot of his friend’s cot in the rudimentary clinic. “Chita would be a good place to live,” he said. “Settle down. Find another wife.”

After paying the doctor, Dimitri still had money from the sale of the diamond, and he’d given half of it to Temujin. It would be enough for Temujin to start a new life, but it was time for them to part ways. Port Arthur was nine hundred miles to the east, and the worst months of winter loomed ahead. Dimitri needed to move quickly, but these few days in Chita had been a welcome respite.

“Here,” he said, laying a beaded red sash on the bed. These sashes were used to tie traditional Mongolian clothing, and Dimitri had bought one for each of them. He wouldn’t have survived the last two months without Temujin, and the red sashes would commemorate their friendship.

“Must you leave so soon?” Temujin asked.

For a few minutes this morning, Dimitri had toyed with the idea of staying here. He could change his name and start his life anew in Chita. He and Temujin could buy a farm and never look back.

But if he did, the massacre he witnessed would be lost to history, a tragedy written on the wind, soon to fade away. He needed to capture its memory and carry it to the world.

That meant he needed to get to New York. Even thinking about continuing his journey to the other side of the world was exhausting, but he would face it one day at a time.

“I can’t stop until I reach my friend in New York. Natalia will help me.”

Temujin’s eyes crinkled in amusement. “If this woman is as rich as you say and is still unmarried, I’ll bet she has the face of a donkey.”

Temujin was probably correct, but it did not put a dent in Dimitri’s regard for Natalia. “She is a good woman with the head of a strategist and the heart of a poet. A homely face does not matter, my friend.”

That night he shared a farewell meal with Temujin. They drank long into the night while he piled log after log into the cast-iron stove to keep the room warm. It was one last evening of joyful companionship before heading off into the harsh Russian winter.



In the months after leaving Temujin, Dimitri traveled eight hundred miles by a combination of sledge, river barge, and foot. He crossed into the highlands of Mongolia and then the eastern region of China. He battled icy wind as January morphed into February, but the climate eased in March as he neared his destination. Five miles outside of Port Arthur, Dimitri bartered for a ride on the back of a chicken wagon headed toward the city. The clucking chickens made it crowded and stinky, but an unexpected surge of emotion welled in him as the rickety wagon entered the outskirts of the town.

For the past seven months, Dimitri had battled fear, hunger, and exhaustion, but he was so close to the ocean that he could smell salt in the air. When the chicken farmer arrived at his destination, Dimitri hopped off the back of the wagon to walk the final mile.

Twenty minutes later he rounded a bend in the road and caught his first glimpse of the ocean. Had there ever been a more beautiful sight? He fell to his knees and crossed himself as a sheen of tears blurred his vision. The ocean represented hope and freedom and escape. After four thousand miles, he had finally arrived, and the ocean looked like paradise.

But it was a dangerous paradise. Port Arthur was in Chinese territory, but the port itself was administered by the Russians, and they might still be looking for him.

Dimitri no longer looked anything like a Russian aristocrat. He was dirty and emaciated, with a shaggy beard and his hair pulled into a topknot like Temujin wore. His fur-lined boots had come off a dead soldier, and his baggy pants had been bartered from a Dukha peddler. His coat was a leather deel, a traditional overcoat worn among the Mongolians, that reached past his knees. The flaps were tied shut with the red sash he’d bought in Chita, and a gunnysack bulging with cedar nuts was slung over his back.

He leaned against the side of a warehouse and looked down into the port below. Storefront signs in Chinese characters stood side-by-side with Russian Cyrillic, French, and a smattering of English. He couldn’t communicate in Chinese, and a Russian outpost could mean the kiss of death, but at last he spotted an American ship. The USS Pacific Star was docked in the harbor, low in the water and with room for passengers in the hold.

He headed toward the American shipping office, where a lump settled in his stomach at the hefty ticket prices. A steerage berth to San Francisco would cost the remainder of his money. But the USS Pacific Star sailed tomorrow, and he needed to be on that ship. The moment he sailed out of Russian-controlled territory, he would be a free man. A broke, hungry, and sick man, but free.