by Merry Farmer
Chapter 13
Did I do the right thing?
The first thought that passed through Holly’s mind as she awoke, warm and cozy, against George, was not what she figured it should be the morning after finally consummating her marriage. She loved George with her whole heart. He had said he loved her as well. Everything should be right with the world, but she couldn’t shake the uncomfortable feeling that she’d done something wrong.
Why had George been so quick to forgive her for all the trouble she’d put him through? Truly, she didn’t deserve him.
At the same time, it felt so wonderful to lie there with him. The smile brought on by their intimacy was still on her lips when George stirred into wakefulness. He blinked and rubbed a hand over his face, then turned his head to her. For a moment, a vaguely confused look came into his eyes. The next moment, it was replaced by a fond smile. He rolled to his side, drawing her into his arms and fully against him.
“Good morning.” His voice was gruff with sleep, but Holly didn’t mind at all. He kissed her, and that made up for everything.
“Good morning.” She lowered her lashes, not exactly embarrassed to be in that position with him, but feeling suddenly shy all the same.
He stroked her back, sending shivers up and down her spine. As far as Holly was concerned, they could stay in bed together all day and she would be happy.
But when she glanced up at him, George’s smile had tightened, and a darker emotion filled his eyes. She was far from being an expert at reading faces, but to her it looked like…like guilt.
“We’re married,” she whispered, not sure if it was an answer to what she saw in his eyes or a statement to remind himself.
He took a long time before replying, “We are.”
They were just two words, but she took them in and started rolling them around in her mind as if they were an entire sermon. Was he reassuring himself? Was he reminding her? Or was he just saying them to echo her? She would have given anything to know what he was thinking.
Several more seconds passed, each more tense than the next. Finally, George loosened his hold on her and inched away. “There’s so much to do today. Christmas is in two days, and we need to make sure everything is ready.” He twisted so that he could climb out of bed.
Confused, doing her best not to be hurt by the wall that still seemed to divide them, Holly took a deep breath. “You’re right,” she said, rolling out of bed herself. “We have so much work to do.”
She headed for the wardrobe to select clothes for the day. Their clothes from the night before were still strewn around the room. As she chose a new skirt and blouse and tossed them onto the bed, then turned to pick up yesterday’s clothes, she caught George watching her. In spite of everything, a giggle rose up in her throat. He must appreciate the nearness of her as much as she enjoyed being close to him. It made her want to be bold, make suggestions. But before she finished collecting clothes and putting them in the hamper beside the wardrobe, George had turned away and started to dress. He was grinning, however.
The tangle of grinning, significant looks, and moments of awkwardness continued as they dressed, tidied up the bedroom, then moved into the main room. Holly fixed a breakfast that was more elaborate than it needed to be, but she had to find some way to distract herself from the itchy feeling that there was still something trying to come between her and George. George ate everything she prepared heartily, but there was more that he wasn’t saying, as they discussed Haskell’s upcoming Christmas events, than the things he did say.
“Katie and Emma were telling me the other day that the money and blankets and clothing they’ve collected for the Cheyenne will be accepted and put to good use,” Holly said.
“Was there a possibility the Cheyenne would have rejected them?” George asked.
“A very strong possibility, apparently,” Holly told him. A nagging voice in her mind told her this wasn’t what they should be talking about. They were so close to clearing up everything between them that surely they could discuss that one last block. “The Cheyenne are a proud people. They don’t like accepting help from those who many of them feel are their enemy.”
“Hmm.” George frowned. “I fear that they might not have any choice before too long. More and more people are moving out to the frontier. So many that I’m not sure it can even be considered frontier anymore.”
They continued talking about the Cheyenne and the burgeoning West as they finished breakfast and cleaned up. Holly’s back was itching with eagerness to ask George what it was that kept them from being perfectly at ease with each other. It felt like she had the ideal chance as the two of them swept and cleaned the church, but she just couldn’t find the words.
She had finally resolved to say something, anything, when George called from the back of the church, “Have you seen the donations box?”
Holly glanced up from the chancel, where she’d been sweeping pine needles and bits of straw from the manger. “It was by the door, where Robbins put it, last night.”
George stood in the space between the last pews and the door, twisting every which way. “I don’t see it.”
“I’m sure it’s there.” She left her broom and dustpan propped against the wall and headed to the back of the room. “I know it was there before pageant rehearsal. Katie mentioned something about donations to the Cheyenne. That’s what made me think of them this morning.”
But when she reached the back of the church, the donations box was nowhere in sight. The pedestal that it usually sat on was in its normal place, but the box was gone.
“Did you move it somewhere during rehearsal?” George asked, rubbing the back of his neck. His expression was growing more serious by the moment.
“No.” Holly let out a breath and met his eyes. It was clear that he was thinking the same thing she was. Robbins’s plan to discredit George had been thwarted in front of everyone the night before. There was as good a chance as any that he had taken the box and run on his way out.
“What should we do?” Holly whispered, still searching the back of the church as though the box would appear and everything would be fine.
George shrugged and shook his head. “We should report this to Trey at the very least.”
“We should,” Holly agreed.
To her surprise, George smiled. It wasn’t a smile that said everything was all right, but rather one that said they could solve the problem together.
Without another word, they hurried through the church and on through George’s office to the apartment, where their coats and winter things were waiting. It took only a few minutes for the two of them to bundle up and head outside. The air was crisp and icy as they made their way around to Station Street. A train was already at the station, and passengers were climbing off and on as porters rushed around loading and unloading baggage.
The jail was on the corner of Station and Main Streets, and by the time George and Holly got there, whatever doubts they had about foul play were confirmed.
“I don’t know how it happened.” Lex Kline, owner of the general store, was already at the jail. So was Russell Smith, Haskell’s tailor. “I didn’t hear anyone break into the store in the night,” Lex went on. “But when I came downstairs this morning, the till was empty.”
“Same thing happened to me,” Mr. Smith said. “Not a sound in the night, but this morning, when I arrived at the shop to open up, the suit I had displayed in the window was gone.”
“Robbins’s donations box is gone too,” George added.
Trey glanced over the heads of the others, nodding to George and Holly. “And Gunn was by earlier to say someone tried rifling through the hotel’s front desk. But they were out of luck, because he keeps the money locked up in his office at night.”
“And no one’s getting in there,” Mr. Smith added with an impressed growl.
“It has to be Robbins,” Holly whispered to George.
He nodded once in agreement, then told Trey, “Holly and I sent a tele
gram to Gunn’s friend, Allan Pinkerton, last week. We haven’t heard an answer yet, though.”
“So you suspect Robbins isn’t who he says he is?” Trey asked.
“But he’s a preacher,” Mr. Kline said with a frown. “He’s a man of God.”
“Did you let him into your shop at all recently?” Trey asked.
“Of course, I did,” Mr. Kline blustered on. “He’s been coming over to give my family religious instruction after supper.”
Trey and George exchanged a wary look. Mr. Kline seemed to realize what could have been happening. His shoulders sagged.
“Rev. Robbins was at my place the other day,” Mr. Smith admitted. “He asked to borrow a key to use as a demonstration in a sermon.”
“You gave Robbins a key to your shop?” Trey asked.
Mr. Smith lowered his head.
“Well, we know who the thief is,” Trey said.
“We should get over to the train station to see if Athos has a reply to our telegram yet,” George said, then shrugged. “It’s not much, but it’s the only thing I can think that would help.”
“Meanwhile,” Trey said, starting for the door, “I’m gonna go looking for that swindler.”
Holly and George rushed out of the jail first, crossing over Station Street and hopping up onto the train platform. The train looked just about ready to leave. No further passengers were climbing aboard, and the porters appeared to be doing one final check. As Holly and George reached the stationhouse door and were about to rush inside, Holly caught a blur of black out of the corner of her eye.
“George.” She grabbed his sleeve to stop him, turning to point.
Sure enough, they caught the back of Robbins as he practically leapt into the last car of the train.
“We have to go after him,” Holly gasped.
George stepped out into the open, pivoting back to Main Street. Trey was already at the far end, marching on toward the hotel. “Trey,” he called out, but it was useless. There was no way Trey would hear him.
“All aboard!” one of the porters called out. The train hissed as steam was released.
“What do we do?” Holly panicked. “He’ll get away.”
“We have to go after him.”
Without waiting, George rushed inside of the station office. Athos was busy behind the desk, but glanced up with a smile as George and Holly dashed up to the desk. “Morning, Rev. Pickering, Mrs.—”
“We need to get on that train.” George interrupted him.
Athos looked baffled for all of two seconds before scrambling for something on the desk. “What’s going on?” he asked as he scribbled out two tickets. “What’s the problem.”
“Robbins stole from several people, and he’s about to get away,” George explained.
“All aboard,” the porter called again.
“You’ve got no time,” Athos hurried on. “That train is leaving for Salt Lake City. I don’t suppose you have bags?”
“We have nothing,” Holly said. “We just need to go after him, stop him.”
Athos handed them their tickets, but when George turned to run, he called, “Wait!”
George whipped back around. “There’s no time.”
“Do you have any money with you?”
Holly blinked. “No.”
Athos thrust a handful of bills at them. “Here. Take this. You can count it later and let me know how much you owe me.”
“Are you sure?” George asked.
“No, but I’ve read enough dime novels to know that you need cash if you’re chasing after bank robbers.”
Holly had to resist the urge to laugh. Outside the stationhouse window, the train was beginning to move. “There’s no time,” she shouted, bolting for the door.
George followed, and in seconds they were outside. They dashed for the closest train car. George leapt onto the platform, reaching back to grab Holly and haul her up with him. They were lucky that the train was only inching along, but with each second that passed, it moved faster and faster.
They managed to stumble into the car before it had picked up any real speed.
“That was a lucky catch,” the porter on duty chuckled. “Tickets?”
Holly panted as George gave the man their tickets, and as they walked down the aisle to find a pair of empty seats. She looked frantically around for Robbins, but she didn’t see him anywhere. Assuming he hadn’t moved up from the end car, he was somewhere behind them.
“We can’t let him know we’re here,” she said as she and George slipped into a seat near the back.
“But we have to keep an eye out to see where he gets off,” George added.
“Do you think he’ll take the train all the way to Salt Lake City?”
George let out a breath and rubbed his free hand through his hair. The other hand still held Athos’s wad of bills. “If he’s smart, he will. He’ll stay on the train until we reach the biggest city possible.”
Holly nodded, agreeing with his logic, and slumped back in her seat to catch her breath. George counted the money as she did. His low whistle popped her back to attention just as she’d begun to relax.
“There’s almost a hundred dollars here,” he whispered.
Holly’s brow flew up. “So much?”
“He can’t have known how much he was handing me.” He folded the bills and tucked them into his coat pocket. “We’ll try not to spend the money, but if we have to, we’ll pay him back as soon as we can.”
“Agreed.” Holly nodded.
“In the meantime, we have to stay alert.”
She nodded again, and glanced past George and out the window. “What’s the next stop on the line?”
George looked out the window with her, his brow knit in a frown. Haskell had quickly disappeared behind them, and now all they saw was ranchland and wilderness. “The Culpepper spread is out this way, but I don’t know if it’s a big enough place to have a train stop.”
As it turned out, it wasn’t, although the train zipped past a small corral and stationhouse less than half an hour later. The next stop was fifteen minutes further still. As soon as the train slowed and squealed to a halt, George and Holly pressed their faces up against the window, straining to see everyone who exited the train from the last car. Only a few people did, and none of them were Robbins. They repeated their desperate searching at the next two stops, but Robbins didn’t get off.
“Do you think he’s still on the train?” Holly asked after they had been rolling along for an hour. “He could have hopped off the other side and only made it look like he got aboard.”
“We’ll have to check.”
The rest of the passengers in their car were preoccupied with their own business or looking out the windows or nodding off to sleep. George and Holly slipped out of their seat and made their way a few rows back to the end of the car, where one of the two powerful stoves that kept the car warm stood. The porter was busy stoking the fire in the stove at the other end, so they opened the door as quietly as they could and crept out onto the platform at the back of the car.
Freezing wind whipped past them, and the noise of the wheels rattling blocked out any other sound. The next and final train car was attached to theirs by a powerful clamp well below the platform where they stood. The forward platform of that car was within reach, but the thought of stepping across empty, rattling space filled Holly’s gut with snakes.
“Can you see inside of that car from here,” she shouted as loud as she dared so that George could hear her. Already, her face and hands were beginning to go numb with cold.
George leaned into the bar at the back of the platform, peering into the next car. “I think so. I— Yes! There he is.”
As soon as George called out, he backed up. Fast as lightning, he grabbed Holly by the hand and pulled her back into their train car. Instantly the noise level went down and warmth surrounded them. The porter glanced up from his work with a frown. George smiled and made an apologetic gesture as he and Holly shuffle
d back to their seat.
“You saw him,” Holly panted, heart racing all over again from the short adventure. “Are you certain it was him?”
“Yes,” George said.
“Did he see you?”
He shook his head. “I don’t think so. He was looking down. Either reading something or sleeping.”
She let out a breath of relief. A moment later, she started giggling. George’s brow pinched in confusion for a moment, then he too started to chuckle. That only set Holly off more. The whole escapade had her feeling wild and free. George wrapped his arm around her and held her close, and the two of them laughed together.
“Why is it that things are perfectly fine between us when we’re working on the pageant or cleaning the church or chasing criminals masquerading as preachers, but when we try to talk about ourselves, we can’t?”
The moment the words were out of her mouth, she regretted it. She covered her mouth with one hand and dropped her gaze away from his.
George was tense for a long moment before letting out a breath. “I don’t know,” he sighed. His arm was already around her, but he hugged her tighter. She leaned her head against his shoulder. “It’s not that I don’t have anything to say about us,” he went on in a soft voice. “I just don’t know how to say it. The words just won’t form themselves.”
“I know,” she murmured. “Half of the time, I don’t even know what to say. It’s all feelings without solid thoughts.”
He hummed in agreement.
“Maybe,” she began, battling to overcome whatever inside her didn’t want her to speak. “Maybe we should just accept that we can’t talk about it and only think of the way things are now, the way they will be in the future.”
George nodded slowly. “Maybe that would be best.”
It felt like an agreement, but it also felt as though they’d closed up all the things they needed to say in a box instead of sorting them out. It wasn’t right. But at the moment, she couldn’t think of what else they could do.
She heaved a sigh and turned her head, still leaning on George’s shoulder, to look out the window. They had a long way still until Salt Lake City.
