“Thank you,” Rosalind said. “When you said we had to leave, panic immediately set in, because I have no idea where we would go. Any luck in clearing my father’s name?”
He didn’t know where to begin. Dorcas had confirmed that the man in the picture wasn’t one of the men her kidnapper had paid off. But he’d been specifically asked not to dig any further, and he had nothing resembling a smoking gun that would justify defying Stiles’s orders. And how could he explain to Rosalind that he was treading very carefully, trying not to upset the status quo, because that was the best chance he had of finding the truth?
“No,” he said. He lowered his voice. “And I can’t speak freely here. Otherwise, we’ll never find out the truth.”
Dr. Deane joined them. “Even though I wouldn’t ordinarily advise transporting someone as injured as Horatio, it would be easier for me to treat him from Noelle. I have other patients to tend to, but I would like to check in on him frequently. Having him with the Montgomerys would make it more convenient.”
Rosalind let out a long sigh. “I don’t know that we can pay for frequent doctor visits. As it is, I’m not sure how we will cover this bill. Then with my mother’s illness…”
“The bill was paid in advance,” Dr. Deane said slowly. Hawk had already paid him, asking him not to tell Rosalind the cost or her benefactor. She was smart enough that she’d figure it out herself, but he didn’t want her to feel beholden to him. She had enough to worry about without worrying about her family’s medical expenses.
“How?” she asked.
Dr. Deane smiled at her. “We have a special fund that community members donate to so that no one goes without medical treatment. With your father’s death, and your brother incapacitated, whatever money you have will have to stretch a while. The fund was established for people like you.”
Hawk had to give the doctor credit for having a creative way to keep his involvement a secret.
“I’ll pay you back,” Rosalind said. “You keep a full accounting, and I’ll pay you back.”
Dr. Deane shook his head. “That’s not necessary. But, if you do feel like repaying the kindness given to you, then someday, when you are able, and you see someone in need, do the same for them.”
The smile that filled Rosalind’s face warmed Hawk’s heart. It’s why he’d had no qualms in paying for her brother’s care or making arrangements for her family to stay with Hugh. The living quarters at the assayer’s office were tight, even though Hugh had just added on an extra room. But, that room alone was larger than the tent the family now shared, and, if construction on Hugh’s house went well, Hugh and Minnie would be moving soon anyway.
He wished he could have done more. But maybe, once Joe’s murderers were brought to justice, it would be enough. And then he could get on with avenging his wife’s death.
Rosalind couldn't comprehend all the people and wagons who'd come to help them with their move. Hawk had left shortly after he’d arrived to tell them to expect help, saying he had to get back to work. There’d been something in the terse way he’d spoken to her that had made her want to reach out to him, to ask him more about what was going on, but she’d held back.
Before she could give it much more thought, Charlie Hardt, the mayor of Noelle, entered the tent with some of his men. "We’re here to help you pack up to move to Noelle.”
Then he turned his gaze to Horatio, who was finally awake, but still so wounded it would take a while to be healed enough to work. Dr. Deane said he’d make a full recovery. For that, at least, they could be grateful. They had to count their blessings where they could and having so many fine people helping them was one such blessing.
"It’s good to see you awake,” the Mayor said, smiling encouragingly at her brother. “I know it will be some time until you’re up and about again, but I wanted to offer my support to your family. I don't believe you had anything to do with what happened to the bridge, and of everyone here, I have the most to lose. As far as I'm concerned, until they prove otherwise, you're innocent. That’s what the law of the land is, that’s the law we abide by. I’m not one to stand for vigilante justice, but unfortunately, Sheriff Draven tells me he has no jurisdiction to go after the men who did this to you."
She liked that the mayor addressed the situation directly and that he spoke to her brother with respect.
“Once you are well enough, come see me, and I’ll have a job for you in my mine. From what I’ve heard, you’re a good worker, and I’m always looking for men like you.”
He outlined the job duties and wages. It wasn't as much as Horatio had been making for the railroad, but anything would be better than nothing.
Then Mayor Hardt turned to her. "I realize this is all very sudden. But we’ll do our best to get through today, and then we can make the necessary arrangements. I know some of the business owners in Noelle, and I'm sure we can find positions for you and your sisters. I understand your mother is unwell?"
She nodded, then gestured at her mother, who was still in bed. "Thank you, Mayor Hardt. And yes, she is unwell. The doctors told us that coming to the fresh, clean air here would be better for her lungs. She was doing well, but our father's death has hit her hard."
"Just call me Charlie. Everyone does, and in a town like Noelle, it's better not to stand on ceremony. We’ll make a bed in the back of the wagon for your mother. It likely won't be very comfortable, but it's the best we can do, given the circumstances."
Another man entered the tent. Charlie gestured at him. "This is Jack Peregrine. He and his grandfather, Gus, and brother, Max, own Peregrines’ Post and Freight. Fortunately, they'd already decided to be closed today for the celebration of the railroad, but now that people won't have it for a while longer, they’ll be busy again soon enough."
Jack shifted uncomfortably. “Some folks are going to say that I'm helping you because your father destroyed the bridge, thereby keeping me in business. Just so you know, that's not why I'm doing it. It's the right thing to do, and my Birdie says that the worst thing in the world is to be accused of a crime you didn't commit. I don't know you folks, and I don't know if your father did it. But when the men were talking about you needing help, under the circumstances, I had to do the right thing. Even if he did do it, it isn't fair to punish a man's family for something they had no part of.”
“But he didn't do it," Rosalind insisted. "He wouldn't have. He was so proud of his work on that bridge. Sometimes, he would take me for a walk to this little spot where we could see the bridge. Sometimes he would just sit there, looking at it, marveling at the fact that he and this group of men the railroad bosses said would never amount to anything were able to pull it off. Sometimes I think the railroad had them build that bridge because they didn't think it could be done. My father and his men showed them, even though the railroad bosses will never see it now. If you ask me, instead of people accusing my father, who isn’t here to defend himself, you should be looking at someone who's got more to gain."
Then she shook her head slowly and offered a small smile to Jack. "I mean no offense by that. I know you're worried about people thinking you have something to gain by the bridge being damaged, but you seem like an honest man, and I can't imagine that you would want to cause anyone harm."
“I'm not worried about me,” Jack said. “I’m worried about you. I'm one of the twelve bachelors who married mail-order brides in order to bring the railroad to Noelle. Noelle knows my family and me. They don’t know you or yours. My wife has a dressmaking business in Noelle, and my brother runs freight in Denver. My family has too much work and not enough time. My true passion is carpentry, but I don’t even have time to build a house for my wife.”
Then Jack nodded, gesturing around the tent. "Where do you want us to begin?"
Fortunately, out of necessity, they lived out of boxes and trunks anyway. They'd sold most of their belongings before coming here. Just the necessities, and a few precious mementos they couldn't live without.
Then Charlie and Jack look
ed over at her father’s trunk of books. Everyone had said they were foolish for wanting to bring them when they could have brought other things that would have been more useful. But her father had insisted that life without his books wasn't worth living. She gestured at the trunk. “That one is full of books. It's rather heavy, and the last time we moved it, it took four men."
Jack groaned. "Not more books. You'd think this town was some kind of university or something, with all the books folks keep bringing in. That feller with the bookshop, every time I turn around he's got more books coming in. I don't suppose you know him?"
She shook her head, and then she smiled. "I don't. But he sounds like someone my family would like. We all love to read, and my mother was a teacher before she got married and had us. We'd be pleased to make his acquaintance once we move to town.”
It seemed foolish, speaking of social things as though everything was normal like they were moving to Noelle for a good reason, like what they’d originally planned.
She turned to Charlie. "I hope I don't seem too impertinent asking, but how does this affect our plan to have a boarding house?"
Charlie let out a long sigh. "I'd like to say that you can go ahead with your plan. But you're going to find that sentiment in town is going to be as difficult as it is here in the camp. While some of us are willing to wait and weigh the evidence, there are others who want you all to be run out of here. You might only be in town for a few weeks before you get too much of it and want to go back to where you came from, to friends and family."
She let out a long sigh. "There isn't anywhere for us to go. We sold everything we owned to come out here, and the truth is, we didn't have any close friends or family. My parents ran a boarding house in St. Louis, and while we had many pleasant guests who passed through and became very dear to us, I can’t imagine any of them would have a place for us. We have no family to speak of, just each other. I'll take your words under advisement because I know they were well-intentioned."
Her sisters had already started packing the few remaining items that weren't in boxes or trunks. When they'd first left to go West, it had taken months to clear out their home. They'd had to sell off a lot of belongings, so they had very little left. And then of course, when they'd gotten to Denver, where her father had gotten the job with the railroad, they'd ended up selling off even more of their belongings because they simply hadn’t been able to take it all as part of the railroad crew.
Jane pulled the bedding off the bed the sisters shared. "I'm going to take this and put it in the wagon for mother. I'll make her a comfortable place to lay, and then we can take the mattress off her bed put it in the wagon and transfer her there. I know it sounds like a lot of work, but she's so frail, and I wish to make this as easy for her as possible."
The mattress had been one of the few luxuries they'd allowed themselves. Mostly for the sake of their mother’s delicate health.
“That sounds fine," Jack said. "Come with me, and I'll help you figure it out. He took the bundled blankets from her, then ran his fingers over the edge of one of the blankets. "This is beautiful. It’s like something my Birdie would make." A silly grin filled his face. "That's my wife. She’s the finest seamstress you'll ever meet, and if the maker of this lovely blanket is here, I know she'll be quite happy to meet her."
Jane shook her head. "It wasn't me. I'm hopeless with the needle, I'm afraid. That would be Cordelia. She and mother used to sit and sew for hours. Rosalind and I would take turns reading to them. It was…"
Jane’s voice trailed off as she wiped a tear from her eye. Rosalind walked over and wrapped her arms around her sister, giving her comfort over their shared grief. Before they left St. Louis, the scene she’d described had been one of many in the parlor. The place Jane had stopped was the part about how their father would listen in, and sometimes even jump in, doing the male parts because he said their voices were too feminine to make it sound good enough.
Why did he have to die? And how could anyone think such a gentle soul would ever do something so hideous?
Jane gave her a brief squeeze back, then took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. "Right. There’ll be time enough for that later. We can share our memories when we’re settled. I understand they aren't allowing us to have a service?"
Jack looked sorrowful for a moment, but Charlie came and joined their small group. "The sheriff will get your father’s body released, and I’ll make sure he gets a Christian burial. I give you my word.”
It was something. Not a lot, but at least there'd be some memorial to the man who meant so much to all of them. Still, it seemed like a terrible injustice that her father’s name was shrouded in scandal.
Why didn’t Hawk have more information? She’d thought that providing him with her father’s picture would be enough. But he hadn’t mentioned it or given it back. As she carried a box out to the waiting wagon, she spied him farther down the camp, talking to one of the men she’d often seen with her father.
She watched him for a moment, and even though she knew he had his own work to do, part of her felt disappointed that he wasn’t doing more to help her family. He’d been evasive when they’d spoken, and even though he’d told her to trust him, it was hard to do so now, considering they were walking toward the saloon tent.
“Why isn’t Hawk doing more to investigate my father’s murder,” she asked, turning back to Charlie.
For a moment, Charlie looked like he wasn’t going to answer her, then he shook his head slowly. “The railroad believes your father was involved, and they’ve asked that the matter be closed. Hawk was specifically asked not to investigate and was ordered to evict you. He rode to town last night after work and was up all night, making arrangements for your family to have a place to stay. From what I understand, he has very little trust in the law, but he’s asked Sheriff Draven and Marshal Gant to investigate quietly.”
That didn’t sound at all like justice. In fact, it sounded like no one cared at all. “Quietly investigate? My father was murdered.”
He gave her a sympathetic look. “Technically, this happened on railroad property, so it’s railroad jurisdiction. The railroad stands to lose a lot of money with this delay, and they don’t want to delay things further by having an investigation hold them up.”
“And you don’t want any more delays because it would be easier and safer to transport your silver by train instead of by wagon.” She stared at him, challenging him.
“True, but a man’s life means more to me than that. I’ve seen enough evidence to believe that your father was murdered, and whoever did this is still on the loose. Not to mention the three people who damaged the bridge in the first place. What other trouble will they cause in my town if they remain on the loose? Sometimes, when you investigate things quietly, the culprits feel safe, thinking they got away with it, and they make enough mistakes to give themselves away.”
Rosalind let out a long sigh. His words reminded her a lot of her father, even though Charlie was significantly younger than him. Her father always wanted her to be patient and told her that things often worked themselves out. What would he say to her now, with his murderer seemingly getting away with the crime?
“And what if they don’t give themselves away? What about justice?” Rosalind asked, looking him in the eye.
“Justice isn’t going to bring your father back,” a man said, joining them. “Marshal Charles Gant.”
He tipped his hat at her, then gave her a look that she thought was meant to look sympathetic, only it made him look like he was in a lot of pain. “Even if we catch whoever did this, watching that person swing from a noose won’t change the fact that your father is dead. It’s what I tried teaching Hawk, but Hawk was always too focused on what he called justice to understand.”
“You know Hawk?” She stared at him, trying to figure out how to put these two men together.
“He used to work with me. But he was too impatient and didn’t like doing things the right way. After h
is wife died, something in him snapped, and he became obsessed with what he called justice. He went from being a good lawman to being a dangerous man, one who will eventually need to be stopped, if he doesn’t change his ways.”
Hawk had a wife?
As if he knew they were talking about him, Hawk joined them. “Nothing in me snapped. A group of men conspired to kill my wife, and one of them is still at large. But the law wasn’t interested in finding him, so I turned in my badge and pursued him myself. One of these days, I will find him.”
Then Hawk turned to her. “Which is why you can be assured that I will not rest until your father’s killer is found. I have no doubt in my mind that it was murder, and no one is safe if there’s a murderer on the loose. That’s the part Gant here seems to forget. It’s not just about getting justice for your father. We have to make sure no one else dies.”
The determination in his voice made her feel bad for even questioning him. But the hard look the marshal gave him made her wonder just how much she really knew about Hawk. Certainly, she hadn’t known he had a wife. She once overheard him telling her father that he wasn’t the marrying type.
“How long has it been since your wife died?” she asked.
“Too long,” Hawk said. “But I lost sight of what was important for a while, made some mistakes. I’m better now, and I don’t intend to get off track again. That’s what’s important. And that’s a promise I intend to keep.”
He turned and gave the marshal a hard look. “Some people might take the easy road, and feed you a bunch of lies that it can’t be done, but that’s just because they’re lazy. Or too chicken to do the right thing.”
The marshal stepped forward. “There’s a difference between chicken and being wise. Just because I don’t go charging off hotheaded into a situation doesn’t mean I don’t care. And don’t think that you can goad me into doing otherwise with your smart mouth. It didn’t work before, and it won’t work now.”
Clearly, there was bad blood between these two men. But whatever Hawk’s frustration with the marshal, he wasn’t going to pursue it now. Instead, Hawk shook his head and turned away.
Rosalind: A Thanksgiving Day Bride (Brides of Noelle Book 8) Page 5
