Autumn Sage

by Genevieve Turner

  Sebastian would spend the remainder of his life in penance and repentance for the evil he’d inflicted as a callow youth, as he’d raged against his absent father. Justice hadn’t punished Sebastian, so he would punish himself.

  McCade shifted indolently as his stare grew more aggressive. He’d no idea of the silt he churned from the bottom of Sebastian’s soul.

  “If this is an attempt to force a confession,” the outlaw drawled, “you’ll have to do better than that.”

  No, it wasn’t an attempt at a confession. McCade wasn’t intimidated by his bulk, his silence, the badge on his chest.

  This was a study. Of a man who’d had a gentleman’s education, had every opportunity to live a life of purpose, to better others through his efforts. Or at the very least, take his money and education and live a life of leisure. And McCade had chosen the exact opposite. Chosen to heedlessly toss chaos and despair into the world, destroying one life after another and counting on his father’s name and the powerlessness of his victims to spare him from punishment.

  Sebastian was also such a man. Or had been.

  His father’s actions may have forced violence upon him, but he’d chosen it for himself as well, time and time again.

  Until that fateful day at seventeen, when he’d chosen differently. And set onto a path away from the empty, violent waste of a man he’d been. It took rigid self-control to keep to the path, and he’d been compelled to abandon much of his interior life in the effort—but he had saved himself.

  “No confessions,” Sebastian said. McCade wouldn’t understand such things as confession and penance—they’d be lost on him. “I suppose you had to put those marks on Miss Moreno’s neck in self-defense. Both times, that is.”

  “Might not have been me. Mexicans tend to get violent with their women. She strikes me as a woman who needs a lot of correcting.” McCade sounded as if he’d enjoy correcting Señorita Moreno.

  Sebastian caught the rage that threatened to snap out of him just in time, shoving it hard behind his reserve. A man’s race couldn’t predict if he was likely to brutalize a woman.

  Judge Spencer was an Anglo, and his wife had been punished with more viciousness than the criminals brought before him.

  “Really?” Sebastian allowed his voice to slip deep, needing that slight escape for his rage in order to keep the remainder caged.

  “Oh yes.” McCade’s smile was obscenely polite. “She says something she ought not to”—he raised his hands to encircle an imaginary neck, slim enough to fit in the space there—“and all a man has to do is squeeze to teach her to know better.”

  Sebastian’s rage slid into nausea. “I know what it looks like when a man strangles a woman.”

  McCade dropped his hands. “Well, then, I don’t need to explain to you what might have happened to her.” He shrugged. “Might have, of course. I didn’t do it, so I couldn’t say.”

  “Of course you didn’t,” Sebastian replied. And allowed himself to imagine striking McCade until the man went down and then striking and striking again and again, until his knuckles were bloodied and broken, until McCade ceased to scream for mercy… just as Sebastian had done before.

  He shoved the images away before the viciousness of them could sicken him. He began to silently recite the Stoics, words carefully chosen to remind himself that he was a man, with a man’s control—and not some mindless beast.

  And that he must never surrender to such bloodlust again.

  It still broke Isabel’s heart to see Joaquin like this.

  He sat up in bed, his face pale and drawn. It had been a month since the attack—a week since the marshal had hauled McCade away—yet Joaquin was not improving. Beneath the smell of the caustic chemicals the nurses used, there lurked a thread of corruption—a faint whiff of the unhealing wound in Joaquin’s torso.

  Isabel puttered about his room, trying to hide her dismay. A twitch of the curtains, an adjustment of a vase, then she felt ready to face him again.

  “You look…” She didn’t want to lie, but well was not how he looked. He looked tired, ill. Crumpled.

  Compared to how dapper he used to be, how confident, how handsome, the man before her seemed an entirely different being.

  His smile was tight, lacking the brilliance it once had. “If I look as I feel, then it must be quite bad.”

  “It’s not… bad.” And it wasn’t. In those early days, he’d looked as if death’s shadow had passed over him—likely because it had. There had been definite improvement since then, his skin regaining some color, his frame recovering some flesh. “But you have looked better.”

  “Honest Isabel,” he said in a low voice with a keen edge. “The only one who will look me in the eye and speak the truth.”

  He, who’d always welcomed the truth from her before, sounded as though he despised her for it.

  He was in a mood today.

  She sank into the chair next to the bed, suppressing a sigh. She knew that before she left, they would exchange harsh words. Again.

  They’d never exchanged harsh words during their engagement, a thing that had delighted her, had made her believe that she’d chosen oh so wisely. But their engagement was ended, and their accord had ended with it.

  She looked at the newspapers scattered across his little table. All from Los Angeles.

  She stared at a headline that prominently featured both her and Joaquin’s names. “Did you read this?” she asked.

  He flicked a fingernail at the paper. “Yes,” he said. “I never thought to find myself being impugned in print for doing my duty. Have you read it?”

  She shook her head.

  “Don’t,” he ordered flatly. “You don’t want to see what they printed about you.”

  Which of course set curiosity to burning within her, to see exactly what insults they’d written.

  She’d regret it as soon as she did it though, so she turned back to her satchel instead.

  “I’ve brought you a book. Much better than a newspaper, I should think.” She pulled it from her bag like a conjurer pulling a trick.

  “Travels in West Africa,” he read. The air of disinterest as he set it aside abraded her nerves. She’d chosen it with such care.

  “I thought you would enjoy a tale of someplace far away,” she said as cheerily as she could. “A place far from here.”

  Tales of exotic places had always interested him before. They’d talked of such books for hours. She’d thought the gift might reignite that spark within him, but she’d been wrong. He was perfectly content to sink into despair here. Or perhaps not content. Perhaps he was simply too enervated to do more.

  She raised a hand to her aching temple.

  “I’m sure I will enjoy it. Thank you.” His dark eyes were as flat as his thanks. “But we also have adventure here in the sanatorium.”

  “Really?” She raised an eyebrow, trying to insert some levity. Trying and failing.

  “Yes. Just this week I was assigned a new nurse.”

  A new nurse? High excitement, indeed. “Oh?” she said. “Old as the hills? Stout as a battle ax?”

  His face pinched into a considering sort of frown. “She is stout, but not old. She’s terrifyingly efficient. Whips in, whips out.”

  “She’s treating you well?”

  “Oh, yes.” He drew the words out almost to the breaking point. “Everyone here gets treated well. It’s a most luxurious captivity.”

  She glanced about this “cage” of his, taking note of the indifferent painting hanging on the wall, the curtains drawn over the window. Her gaze lingered on the window a moment longer than she would have liked, an old habit she no longer needed.

  The marshal had hauled McCade away.

  She pulled her gaze back to Joaquin, the paper within her satchel crinkling as she shifted in her chair.

  The telegram. The reason she was here.

  She drummed her fingers on the chair arm, worrying at her lower lip, wondering how to broach this next issue.
>
  “The marshal sent a telegram,” she said baldly. “The trial begins in a few days and I leave for Los Angeles tomorrow.”

  The marshal’s summons crinkled once more as her arm twitched against the satchel with the drumming of her fingers.

  Joaquin looked away to the wall. “I won’t be able to go,” he said.

  Her mind may have known, but her heart had still hoped—hoped she wouldn’t have to be alone in the ordeal.

  “I know,” she forced out. “The marshal said that this—this McCade”—her tongue stumbled over having to say that name to Joaquin—“is the son of a powerful man.”

  Joaquin’s mouth curled in a sneer. “The marshal. The hero of the day.”

  She stiffened. “And what you did wasn’t heroic?”

  “Oh yes, I’m quite the hero. I can’t even testify at the trial for my attempted murder.” Never had he spoken so caustically to her.

  She absorbed that for a moment. “I will fight for both of us,” she assured him.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said dully. “Even if he’s convicted, the son of a prominent man won’t serve long for the attempted murder of a Mexican.”

  Her heart began to knock against her chest. He was correct—and yet…

  “What would you have me do?” she snapped. “Not testify? I thought you cared about justice.” Now she was sneering back at him. Really, what did he think her choices were in this? She had none.

  “A courtroom isn’t like a schoolroom.” His voice rose with agitation. “You can’t command everyone to believe you through sheer force of authority.”

  Such words from him were like a strike from his open palm. He’d always believed her to be extraordinary, had taken pride in her air of command, her steady self-containment.

  “I can only be myself,” she said tightly. She’d no choice in that, either. “I’m no dissembler. I haven’t been trained in the finer points of legal misdirection.”

  “Well, you’re going to become well acquainted with it soon.” Such bitter sarcasm from him shocked her. “You’ll likely find yourself questioned by some of the finest lawyers money can buy. Playing the teacher with them won’t win the day.”

  He thought she’d come out the loser in such a match, did he?

  Lord, if even Joaquin thought this beyond her…

  “Money can’t buy the truth,” she said. A silly, childish sentiment, but his air of defeat, his pessimistic assessment of the coming trial—it hurt. Why couldn’t he bolster her, instead of tearing her down?

  “It can make it look remarkably like lies,” he threw out, before his face twisted savagely.

  Her shoulders sagged as she rushed to his side, regretting that she’d met his ill temper with some of her own.

  He’d told her once that the pain came and went in swells like the tide of the ocean: sometimes high, sometimes low, but always present. He must be having a surge, his fist pressed tight against the wound in his belly, all of him curling around it.

  “Do you want me to call for the nurse?” she asked softly.

  “No.” The word was pushed from between his clenched teeth. “It will pass.”

  She took his hand, wishing there was more she could do. Slowly, over a period that felt like eons, but must have only been a few minutes, his face relaxed.

  “Better now?” she asked.

  He nodded, his eyes still closed. He sighed deeply, opened them again. “You should go. You have a long drive back home. And a long trip tomorrow.”

  Yes. A long trip, the end of which would find her alone against the best legal prowess in Los Angeles.

  The marshal might be there, watching the trial. Watching her.

  He’d be clean shaven once more, his suit pressed, the dust and dishevelment of the trail gone. But the bulk of him would be as impressive as always, his eyes still that unsettling gray…

  She gave herself a shake. She ought not to be wishing for the marshal; he might have Judge Bannister with him. If Judge Bannister happened to see her mother, if he realized that the woman who’d evaded him for decades was right in front of him, finally within striking distance…

  Yet another tangle she must navigate during her time there.

  “I’ll see you when I return.” She brushed a kiss across his cheek, the gesture born of habit now rather than affection. The texture of his unshorn skin had her halting for a half a moment of surprise. Joaquin had always been so fastidious about his appearance—spending the day with a quarter inch of stubble on his face would have been abhorrent to him. The nurse must not be shaving him as often as she should.

  She took one last look around the room, the drawn curtains throwing gloom across the book abandoned on the side table and the man slumped in the bed. Perhaps… perhaps if she returned with news of McCade’s conviction, it would impel Joaquin to rise from that bed. To more actively seek his own recovery.

  One more reason she must be victorious in Los Angeles.

  Isabel left with heavy heart and shuffling feet, nearly crashing into a nurse in the hallway.

  “Excuse me,” she said as she caught herself.

  The nurse’s smile was strained. “My fault.” She was short, with pale hair and skin, and an air that clearly said she wanted to get on with her duties.

  “Are you Sheriff Obregon’s nurse?”

  “I am.” Her eyes went a little flinty, although the smile didn’t leave her face. “You must be his fiancée.”

  Isabel didn’t bother to correct her. The dislike in the nurse’s gaze made her feel as prickly as a hedgehog.

  “Is there anything he needs?” she asked briskly. “Anything I can bring him?”

  “Between his family and the nurses here, he doesn’t lack for anything.” A neat dismissal.

  The nurse glanced down the hall. “And here come his sisters now,” she announced.

  Sure enough, Teresa and Ines were coming down the hall, slowing when they caught sight of Isabel. A sticky awkwardness entangled the three of them, weighting Isabel’s limbs. The little nurse disappeared, clearly happy to leave them to themselves and return to her duties.

  “Teresa. Ines.” She nodded a greeting.

  “Señorita Moreno,” Teresa said, her expression solemn, the lines of her face taut.

  It had once been first names only between them.

  Silence fell, and Isabel could sense all of them searching for something to say.

  She’d spent many a productive afternoon in the Obregon sisters’ company, sewing, planning the next action of the temperance meeting, discussing her coming marriage to Joaquin.

  Although they knew that Joaquin had ended the engagement, they behaved as if they held Isabel responsible for its demise, speaking to her as little as possible when they did happen to meet.

  She’d lost more than a fiancé when Joaquin had severed things between them—she’d lost friendships as well.

  “We hear you’re leaving tomorrow for the trial,” Teresa offered.

  “I am,” Isabel replied, not allowing her trepidation purchase within her words.

  “We don’t have to tell you how vital it is that this man is punished,” Ines said severely.

  No, they didn’t. After Joaquin’s lecture, she didn’t need their reminders.

  “I know what’s expected of me.” She’d meant to be crisply assuring, but she only sounded cold.

  “Good,” Teresa said, more warning than approving. “We’d hate for this trial to fail because of you.”

  Easy enough for Teresa to be so archly nasty—she wasn’t the one about to face down her attacker in a courtroom.

  “I’m glad I meet with your approval,” Isabel said, keeping her voice cold.

  Their expressions shuttered. Good. Let them feel some shame for trying to badger her.

  “We only meant that—”

  “I know exactly what you meant.” Isabel cut Ines off without a bit of remorse. “Joaquin and I already discussed this.”

  Teresa’s expression softened. “How is he t
oday?”

  The concern in her question softened Isabel as well. “Better than usual. I left him a book; perhaps he’d like one of you to read it to him.”

  The awkwardness crept back in like a fog, and Isabel sensed that the sisters wanted to end this conversation as desperately as she did.

  “I must be off,” she said with a short wave of farewell.

  The sisters only nodded in return.

  Isabel didn’t look back as she left. She’d find no comfort from that quarter.

  McCade looked entirely different.

  Head lowered contritely, with a fresh haircut and finely cut suit, he looked exactly as he was—a gentleman’s son. Sebastian might not have believed the transformation had he not seen it for himself here at the bail hearing.

  Of course appearances weren’t everything. Beneath that fine suit and innocent expression, McCade was still a criminal.

  “Tell me, Mr. Alder,” Judge Hess was saying to McCade’s lawyer, “why shouldn’t I refuse to set bail for Mr. McCade? He’s accused of trying to murder two people.”

  “There are no other witnesses to the attack other than the alleged victims,” Alder pointed out smartly. “Mr. McCade has never been charged with a crime before.”

  Brisk. Earnest. As if Alder actually believed in McCade’s innocence.

  In the week since he’d returned, Sebastian had spent the time looking more closely into McCade’s illegal activities. A beating here, a theft there. Few witnesses, none willing to testify, and no evidence that could be presented in court.

  McCade had been smart with his crimes, targeting the lower elements of society—Negros, the Chinese—people the law cared little about and often actively persecuted. Just the sight of his badge had gotten more than one door slammed in Sebastian’s face in Chinatown; the memories of the Massacre of ’71 hadn’t yet faded.

  But he’d done nothing so brash as shooting a lawman before. McCade was becoming more daring the longer he went unpunished.

  If McCade wasn’t convicted, if he knew he could escape justice even after nearly killing a sheriff—what might he try next?