Sophie's Daughters Trilogy

by Mary Connealy

  The two men exchanged a harsh, greedy laugh.

  Tulsa shoved the last sightseer toward the edge of that cliff. Then they both set out to take a much longer but less deadly way down.

  Logan heard something coming. Falling.

  It stopped overhead and there was no more sound. But he suspected it was another member of this woman’s party being tossed over the edge. Only the fact that she’d fallen had saved her life. If she’d been up on that trail, wounded, they’d have finished her off and cast her over. “Were there many with you up there?”

  “Yes. All dead. All but me.” Her head sagged against him, her cheek resting on his chest, as if the last of her strength was spent.

  Logan needed to stay and bury the dead. A white bleached bone was only a few feet away from him on this crude burial ground. The men who had attacked Sally were savages worse than the most vicious wolves.

  Logan knew he had no choice about walking away. He had to see to the living. Between the wolves and the wounded woman, Logan could do nothing but go on. He knew now why the wolves stalked this area in a pack. There was an unnatural supply of food.

  Sickened, Logan began walking with his delicate cargo. He’d come back. Identify these bodies if possible and inform their families. Then report this to the authorities.

  What authorities? There was no law out here. The place was almost completely empty, though travelers to Yellowstone had increased the chance of a few wanderers coming down these mountain trails. A fact evil men had no doubt discovered.

  Logan suspected these men loitered around town and followed sojourners into the wilderness. That would explain how they knew where to position themselves to waylay people.

  A perfect place for lawlessness of the worst sort.

  He picked up his speed, heading for his picketed horse. Hoping he wasn’t hurting Sally. But considering the wolves, both animal and human, which would have definitely been on her had she been alone, getting out of here was about the only real choice he had.

  Settling in to take the long strides he’d learned while hiking miles and miles in these rugged, beautiful, wooded mountains, he glanced down and saw that her eyes had closed. Passed out again.

  Regret hit him hard. He’d hurt her. Holding her closer was his only way to apologize. He walked along with painful care and prayed over her, and for the others who had died here.

  They were beyond help. She had a chance.

  A wild cry overhead pulled his eyes upward and diverted him from the brutal ugliness he’d just encountered. He stopped to drink in the eagle soaring, playing on the wind, lifting and falling, wheeling and diving. Majestic and free and glorious.

  Dear Lord God, bless the souls of those who died here. Help me protect this young woman from the dangers in this beautiful creation of Yours.

  His throat ached with the beauty of it. With the beauty of this entire, spectacular corner of the earth. He could stay here and draw forever. And he just might.

  Looking back down at the battered woman, he saw past the blood to how perfect her face was. Bone structure that sang to his artist’s heart as surely as the victorious eagle above. Blond hair that had fallen out of a braid. That little pink bow peeking out. The cruel scar at her throat.

  Why was she dressed like a man? He wondered about it, but he didn’t object to it in the least. He believed in letting people live their own lives, in their own way. It’s what he’d wanted desperately from his father.

  He reached the clearing and breathed a sigh of relief to see his horse, a sturdy brown gelding, still there, cropping grass. A vision of peacefulness in this valley of the shadow of death. Beyond the horse he saw the white-capped mountains.

  A flicker in his artist’s heart made him wonder if he should paint the ugliness of nature, too. There was no power in art if it wasn’t honest. Logan wanted to do work that mattered, that lasted. But the ugliness of what he’d seen back there in that talus slide was a depth of ugliness Logan didn’t believe would fit in the artistic world. He’d consider it. Wolves, death, murder. It would be drawing tragedy and sin and hate. Did God give him this gift and hope he’d use it in such a way? Logan couldn’t decide.

  His father’s oft-repeated opinion that Logan was wasting his life echoed and taunted. His father saw death, fought for life, and even if he lost, went on to fight again.

  Was Logan less courageous than his father? Was choosing to draw his pictures a way to run from the ugly side of life? Logan had always believed he was showing courage to follow this leading from God, but maybe he was, in fact, a coward. All of this doubt assaulted him as he approached his horse in this wild setting.

  Logan looked back at the perfect beauty of his sleeping patient. How his father would tease him about trying to doctor someone after Logan had turned his back on the profession. Now Logan wished he’d at least listened more. Then he’d know better what to do. Instead, he’d spent his childhood with his head in the clouds. Drawing and dreaming. And now, when a bit of medical knowledge would possibly save a life, he had none.

  He let her beauty pull him away from the ugliness he’d seen. He wanted to paint her. Use his precious oils to catch the color of her white-yellow hair and sapphire eyes and the depth of the soul he’d seen as she hung in a tree just past his reach.

  Later. But it would happen.

  He would paint her face. He rarely did portraits, but this one he must do.

  He laid her down on the ground carefully, saddled his gelding, and mounted with Sally cradled in his arms. He gave the animal a gentle kick.

  The horse knew the way home, even though it was hours and hours away. The old boy was fat with grass, but he knew there’d be a bait of oats waiting so he moved along with little guidance.

  Which left Logan free to give all his attention to the beautiful Buckskin Angel that had fallen from above to land in need of his care.

  The Rocky Mountains truly were a land of contrasts.

  Near miraculous beauty … and murder.

  Four

  Where’s Sally?” Mandy’s heart sank as she saw Sidney alone in the buggy.

  She’d expected Luther and Buff back days ago with her little sister. Sidney tended to make his trips to town stretch to a week. Luther and Buff could make it in two brutally hard days. Now, after days of tension that had stretched her temper tight as a fiddle string, Sidney had returned with no Sally and no Luther and Buff.

  Mandy looked at the two men who rode behind Sidney. His bodyguards. Bodyguards were as ridiculous as the house Sidney was building.

  She ignored the hammering going on behind her. Men were hard at work building Sidney’s ridiculous mansion, thanks to all that ridiculous gold.

  “Sally wasn’t there, but there was a message from her.” Sidney, who’d gained weight steadily since he’d found his gold, lumbered down from his ornate buggy, its sides gray instead of proper black. Just as Sidney’s suit was gray and Mandy’s dress. The gray was custom-made and far more expensive than a black buggy. It was like the man was looking for someone to overcharge him. “Luther and Buff left town ahead of me to meet her. There was a note saying they’d left the train and would be coming from a different direction. I expected to find them all here.”

  Mandy had to fight back a cry of disappointment. “It’s not like Sally to let anything delay her.”

  “There was a letter from Texas. From your ma and pa.” Sidney smiled his superior smirk that told her how little he cared for her parents. Then he reached his plump, dimpled hand into the inner pocket of his suit with deliberately taunting slowness and produced a tattered envelope. Opened.

  It was all Mandy could do not to go after him with the butt of her Winchester. Just like every day.

  She controlled the urge with little effort. With practice, a woman could learn to do almost anything. “Does the letter say she’ll be late?”

  The letter Sidney carried had been written to her and her alone. Her parents always wrote the letters with only Mandy’s name on the outside. Thei
r way of being stubborn about the fact she’d married a man who already had a wife … almost.

  Not that Mandy had known that at the time.

  And the wife had, after all, been dead.

  Not that Sidney had known that at the time.

  Still, even without his name on the letter, Sidney always opened it and read it on his way home from town.

  Mandy had her teeth clenched behind her smile.

  “The letter is old, sent before Sally started out. We have worthless mail delivery out here.” Sidney shook his head and sniffed in a way that made people dislike him. People including her.

  How could Sidney think they’d have mail delivery when he picked a house site at the top of a mountain slope? He didn’t expect it, not really. He just liked sneering.

  Sidney tossed the reins of his team of grays to the taller of his two bodyguards. Bodyguards, what nonsense. A man guarded his own body out West.

  These two were tough men, Mandy had no doubt, but they rarely spoke, and she didn’t like what she saw in their eyes, cruelty and arrogance and sometimes, when they fastened on her, something ugly. Something that made her keep her rifle close to hand day and night.

  “They’ll be here soon. It’ll be nice to have some company.” He might even mean it. Sidney rarely covered his feelings. A fact Mandy deeply regretted.

  A stiff upper lip sounded like heaven. Rather than jump up and down and start screaming and fretting over the delay or worrying over her missing little sister, Mandy just kept smiling. Sidney didn’t like her all worked up. Pleasant, calm, polite, restrained. Above all restrained. She’d become a master at restraint almost equal to her sharpshooting.

  And at night, if she had the occasional dream about her hands wrapped around Sidney’s flabby neck, well, she never actually touched the man, so no harm was done. In fact, it was possible that’s why God had created dreams.

  “Pa’s home!” Little Angela came charging out of the cabin. Just past two, she was a fireball. Lively and bright and full of sass. And dressed in gray.

  She reminded Mandy of her sister Laurie so much it was like a constant ache in her throat. Mandy had a big hand in raising Laurie, so turning all her love to this little tyke was a simple task indeed.

  Angela ran straight past Mandy to her pa.

  Sidney caught Angela up in his arms with a grunt of effort. “Hello, sweetie. I’ve got a surprise for you from town.” Being wealthy had agreed with Sidney to a certain extent. Being a king—at least in his own mind—suited him right down to the ground.

  A loud cry from their cabin turned Mandy’s attention. She looked over her shoulder at the small but adequate cabin Sidney had paid someone else to build before he figured out just how much money he really had.

  Little Catherine was awake. Hungry no doubt. Mandy needed to get her weaned before the next one came. But with both of their milk cows dried up, waiting to calf, milk was scarce up here in the high-up hills where Sidney seemed determined to live.

  Luther and Buff would have brought supplies from town, but they’d been focused on picking up Sally. Then, since she hadn’t arrived, it appeared that they’d turned their attention to figuring out why.

  Which would leave the supplies to Sidney. Who came home empty-handed.

  He stood Angela back on her two wobbly feet, handed her a licorice stick, and shooed her away like an unwelcome fly. But he had hugged her nicely first.

  “Can I read the letter, Sidney? While I see to Catherine?” Mandy used exactly the correct tone. Not over eager. Pleasant, restrained, restrained, restrained.

  Mandy adjusted the rifle strapped on her back. She’d begun to leave it off occasionally after their first year out here. Hung it over the door in the tidy little cabin. Then Sidney had struck it rich and hired his bodyguards with their watchful, hungry eyes, and she’d clung to it, either within grabbing distance inside or strapped on her back outside. She even slept with it beside her bed.

  The taller of the two men gave her a long look behind Sidney’s back, and Mandy was grateful that she was in an advanced state of pregnancy. Sidney had kept her in that state ever since they’d gotten married.

  But Mandy didn’t mind. Her daughters were the best part of her marriage. No contest.

  God protect me. And protect Sidney from me.

  She shouldn’t ask. It wasn’t properly restrained. But she couldn’t stop herself. “Sidney, did you remember to bring supplies from the general store?”

  Why they needed supplies when they were surrounded by mountains teeming with food was beyond Mandy, but she knew with Luther and Buff riding out to meet Sally and bringing her the rest of the way, there was only the food that she fetched with the business end of her rifle, or what Sidney brought from town. And going hunting when she was eight months into her confinement, with two toddlers in tow, was a bit much. Not that she hadn’t done it. The hunting was hard enough, but bleeding and gutting a deer, then hauling her catch home and butchering it taxed her right to the limit.

  Luther and Buff had left plenty of food. But that was before any of them knew about the men coming to build the new house even farther up the hill.

  Sidney, not a practical man at the best of times, had neglected to mention the work crews, who had arrived shortly after he left. All Sidney knew was there was always food on the table somehow and he ate his share and more with great enthusiasm. He had no personal curiosity about how it got there.

  “No, I didn’t have time for that, Mandy. I had business to see to. Important business.” Sidney came into possession of his kingly voice with little provocation. Mandy would have liked to shove that attitude of his right down his throat.

  “As if eating isn’t important?” Uh-oh. That was definitely not properly restrained.

  The baby cried again, louder. Mandy needed that letter before she settled in to feeding Catherine.

  Sidney’s eyes flashed in his puffy, pallid face—temper, always sullen, pouty. One more word from her, and he’d probably not speak to her for days. Oh, she was tempted. She was more than tempted.

  “Sidney, how am I supposed to feed five workmen, your bodyguards, plus our two children and you without food?”

  Sidney crushed her letter in his hand. Mandy felt as if he’d physically crushed her heart. What if he destroyed it? What if there was news? Beth was expecting a baby and Mandy knew it might have come by now.

  She thought about her rifle on her back in such a sinful way she was horrified. Restraint.

  God protect me from my temper. And mostly, protect Sidney from it.

  “I do everything around here.” Sidney lifted his fist, holding the letter in a tight ball, but Mandy could smooth it out easily. “I provide you with luxuries your father never dreamed of.”

  Sidney pulled a match out of his pocket. The man had taken to smoking expensive cigars since the gold mine had come in. So a match didn’t necessarily mean disaster. He could be planning to smoke.

  “I will not put up with your constant nagging.” Sidney struck the match and held it to the paper.

  “I’m sorry, Sidney. So sorry. I will never speak like that to you again.” She held her breath. Prayed. Her fingers had an actual itch on the tips and it would scratch them very nicely to grab her rifle. She wouldn’t shoot him of course. But just one well-placed butt stroke to the head—

  “See that you don’t, woman. And get in the house. It’s not proper for you to flaunt yourself in front of the workmen. Will you never learn decent manners?” He very deliberately dropped the letter to the ground and stomped on it as he walked past her without looking at her.

  “Yes, Sidney, I’ll be right in.” She rushed for the letter and snatched it up. She looked up to see the bodyguards smirking at her.

  One, Cordell Cooter, who held the horses, was tall and thin and young. The other, Nils Platte, was stocky and older and hard. Both treated her with disdain to match Sidney’s. Although Cooter’s disdain was different. Mandy saw contempt in the eyes of both men, but Cooter’s co
ntempt had more to it. Mandy couldn’t define it, but she knew it wasn’t decent and she knew she’d never want to be at Cooter’s mercy. Of course, she’d prefer not to be at Sidney’s mercy either, and here she was. It crossed Mandy’s mind that the two might one day be forced to protect Sidney from her.

  Angela grabbed onto her leg, and Mandy tried her best not to look devastated by Sidney’s humiliating treatment. But one look at little Angela’s expression told Mandy she’d failed. Her precious daughter had tears brimming in her eyes. She looked to her mama for comfort, and Mandy could barely find the strength to hold a frown off her face. She picked up her daughter and hugged her tight, smelling the fresh scent of her recently washed blond curls.

  Restraint. She had to learn restraint. Sidney knew too many ways to make her regret it if she didn’t.

  “Protect me, Lord,” Mandy whispered against her baby’s smooth, pretty pink cheeks. “Protect us both.”

  Catherine wailed inside. The baby kicked in Mandy’s belly. Angela’s tears spilled over. And Mandy restrained her temper, shoved the letter deep in the pocket of her gingham dress, and tried to figure out how to feed eleven people with bare cupboards.

  She was a good shot. And she had a vigorous garden. She’d manage.

  Being rich had turned out to be terribly hard work. Being married to a man who thought he was the King on the Mountain had turned out to be a nuisance.

  “We shoulda met ’em by now.” Luther looked sideways at Buff. Worry was riding them both hard. So hard Luther had spoken aloud what they both knew without words.

  “Just keep headin’ to meet ’em. All we can do.” Buff pulled the crude map the colonel had sent along with the train, along with a note from Sally saying they’d cut days off the trip by heading cross country rather than riding all the way to Helena.

  “Could we have missed ’em turning off the trail somewhere?” Luther reached for the map and studied it. “Or missed the place where their trail intersected with the trail from Helena to Mandy’s cabin?” Luther wasn’t much of a one for talking, but this needed to be hashed out before they rode another step—maybe in the wrong direction. They were already inching along, studying sign. Sally should have been here by now.