by Ginny Aiken
A knot formed in Nathan’s gut each time he looked at the ruins of the general store. Had the Nolans perished in the blaze? He had to find out. He couldn’t continue to worry and speculate.
“You fellows work on the flames. I—I need to check over there.”
From his men’s expressions, he didn’t need to say more. They understood his mission.
As he approached the smoldering pieces of wall that remained standing, the mounds of charred furnishings, the skeleton of the store, bile rose in his throat. Would he also find the remains of the three who’d lived there?
His endeavor proved gruesome indeed. He didn’t need to go far to spot what remained of one human body, partly covered by burning debris. If he had to guess, he’d say it was Roger, since he’d been the largest member of the household. Taking all precautions possible, he nudged aside chunks of what had become charcoal with a metal rod he’d found a few feet away from the house. It might once have suspended Mrs. Nolan’s wash line.
He found no trace of the other residents of the place.
“Barn’s empty, boss,” Woody called out. “No animals here.”
Where were Mrs. Nolan and Theo Nolan?
If the blaze had been an accident, wouldn’t it have made sense for her to head for the logging camp for help? Why hadn’t they met them on the trail? Surely they wouldn’t have tried to get all the way to Bountiful.
Nathan wouldn’t have answers to his questions until he and his men doused the flames. He dropped the metal piece and picked up a tin pail, then headed for the well. With a load of water in hand, he joined his men and helped them bring the fire under control.
Not much later, they all stood still, faces streaked with sweat and soot, surveying the wreckage in the clearing. While the blaze was out, thin curls of smoke rose here and there, where embers had been doused as recently as minutes before. The oppressive silence bore an ominous weight, and Nathan couldn’t shake the vague sense of foreboding that enveloped him.
The sound of a rapidly approaching horse came from the opposite section of the path from where he and his men had come. Into the smoke-colored approaching dawn, Theo Nolan galloped, anger drawn on his round face.
“What’d you do to my property?” he asked as he drew the horse to a stop before Nathan. He dismounted, and the belligerence in his voice spread to his face. “Didn’t ya have enough with the rest of the whole mountain? You that greedy, Bartlett?”
“Take a breath.” Nathan kept his words even, his expression bland. “My man Purcell saw the smoke from up at our camp. We came down to see if we could help.”
“Help yourself to what ain’t yours, is more like it.”
“Hang on, there,” Woody said. “No one’s helped themselves to nothing, here. We came down, used your well water to fill our buckets, and we been puttin’ out your fire ever since. Where were you all this time?”
Theo cleared his throat with a loud harrumph. “I was supposed to be off to Bountiful. But when I got me to the end of the trail and before I headed that way I turned around for a moment. That there big cloud of smoke was what I seen. Turned myself right back around again and got back here soon’s as I could. You’re what I found.”
“Sounds pretty close to what we did,” Nathan said to the enraged man. “I must say, I’m sorry about your brother. It looks as though the fire caught him while sleeping, and he didn’t get out.”
A series of emotions sped across Theo’s features, and he worked his jaw in an attempt to control them. “Roger?” he asked. “You sure ’bout that?”
Nathan shrugged. “As close as I can get. There’s what’s left of the poor soul who died, spread out on the floor. It’s a man, and it’s not you. Was anyone else here?”
Theo shook his head. “Only Roger and Faith—Faith! Where is she? Where’d she go after she lit my poor brother on fire?”
The sick sensation that had hovered in the pit of Nathan’s stomach lurched to full force. “Whoa there, Theo. No one’s seen Faith or the mules. Maybe she opened their stalls and took them with her to safety.”
He hoped.
Theo narrowed his eyes. “You saying the mules is gone, too? With that woman?” He spat on the ground. “She stole ’em. After she kilt my brother with fire. Burned down all’s we got. Gotta find her. Ain’t right, what she done to my brother. And me.”
Woody held out his hand. “Now wait up a blazin’ hot minute, there, why don’tcha, Theo? We don’t know what happened here.” He shook his grizzled head. “Don’t you go sayin’ nothin’ too crazy, nothing what’s gonna come back and kick ya in the behind, if you know what I mean.”
“I’m only saying what I see, clear as day.” Theo was known for his obstinacy.
“And all you see,” Nathan said, seeking more patience within him, “is a burned building. Look”—he pointed toward the fence around the animals’ pen—“how the board is still broken, right where the mules got out not so long ago. I was here that day, helped Roger round them up. But it seems no one’s fixed it since then.”
Theo scoffed. “Them mules were in the barn when I fetched Charlie, here, and left not so long ago. Even you gotta know they couldn’t’a got out on their own. They’re mules, right?”
It did sound far-fetched, even to Nathan, who was trying to see all sides of the situation. Still, without knowing everything about the night’s events, he had to try to keep matters on sensible footing.
“Why would Mrs. Nolan steal her own mules?”
Theo’s small brown eyes flashed with outrage. “They ain’t her mules, Bartlett. They’re mine. Mine and Roger’s, that is. We paid for ’em. All’s she did was clean up after them, and give them food. Nothing more.”
“But she was Roger’s wife. Surely, as husband and wife, they saw the animals as hers, too.”
Theo jutted out his chin. “Weren’t hers. Mine and my brother’s. That’s it. Now you’re saying he’s gone?”
“Go take a look.”
Color drained from Theo’s padded cheeks. “I…s’pose.”
He dragged his feet as he walked closer to the ruined store. Nathan watched him cast a quick look at the body and then, with a sharp inhalation, the white-faced Theo turned away and came back to Nathan’s side.
His throat worked with the large gulp he took. “S’him, all right.” He gave his fat- and flesh-padded jaw an unexpected squared-off firmness. “Someone’s gotta go fetch Marshal Blair. Cain’t do it myself, on account of that man plumb hates me. But he’s gotta come out here straight away and arrest that Faith woman. She kilt my brother, destroyed our property, and stole what’s left. She ain’t better’n no common rustler. Way I see it, she’s pert near a horse thief, what with mules being half horse, as they are.”
A sinking feeling struck Nathan. His worst fears had been voiced. And by someone whose word would carry weight in the eyes of the law.
Was Theo right? Had Faith harmed her husband? Had she stolen the mules?
Or was she, as Nathan hoped, a frightened woman who’d run from a fire, leading her animals to safety?
Only the Lord knew.
He looked around the clearing, praying for the right way to handle the moment, hoping to diffuse the tension without letting matters get any further out of hand. But it seemed the forest he loved so much, the woods that normally gave him a sense of shelter, of comfort, of peace, today reminded him of an oncoming Union battalion. The shadows loomed in ominous silence, seemingly encroaching upon them, threatening to swallow everything and everyone in their path.
He’d never thought himself particularly fanciful, and he realized he was letting his fears and worry get far ahead of him, but the sense of foreboding wouldn’t let him shake it off. The moment lengthened as thoughts coursed through his mind. What should he do? What was the truth of the matter? Was there any way to help Mrs. Nolan? Or was Theo right?
What should Nathan do in this sorry situation?
Nothing came to him, no answer to any of his questions. Still silent, he str
ode to the barn, and found the large door ajar. He slipped inside, only to see the oddest stall he’d ever seen. It was wide enough for at least three, and the door swung lopsided from flimsy hinges. The meager latch hung down, one of the nails that once held it in place gone. While he couldn’t be sure, it would seem that the mules had panicked at the scents and sounds of the fire and had busted out of their quarters. More than likely, they’d run off, seeking safety.
Had Mrs. Nolan gone to find them? Was there any way she was trying to make off with them, as Theo had said? Was she safe in the forest? Or had something befallen her as well? Could someone—whoever set the fire—have taken her and the mules? There were a lot of hoofprints around, but it was a general store.
Had been a general store.
Frustrated, he went back outside. He realized that no matter how much he wanted to resolve the matter there was only one thing to do. “We didn’t see her on our way down, and if you didn’t see her coming up the other side of the trail, then we’re not sure where she might be. Goodness knows it’s a big mountain full of trees out here. She could be anywhere, lost probably. We need to find her.”
“Poor thing could be hurt,” Woody offered.
“Bah!” Theo said. “You’re right ’bout one thing, Bartlett. We gotta find her. And someone has to fetch Marshal Blair straight away. He’ll know what to do with the likes of her. Does it all the time, I reckon.”
If anyone knew the truth of Theo’s assertion, it was certainly him. Over the span of years Nathan had known the brothers, the younger of the two had found himself only too often on the diligent marshal’s wrong side.
A sense of doom dropped down on the men. Matt offered to go to Bountiful and return with the marshal, since it didn’t seem as though Theo had any intention of backing down from his demand. The rest of the men were resolved to find Mrs. Nolan.
Nathan separated the small group into sets of two. He and Woody headed up the trail, while the other pairs spread out into the woods around the store. Anything could happen to a lost traveler in the dense foliage. He prayed someone would soon find her.
He prayed they found her alive.
Faith awoke when Maisie leaped up from where she’d lain, offering her a perfectly adequate pillow for her throbbing head and a source of warmth for her chilled body. The throbbing wasn’t likely to improve any time soon, since her head crashed down onto the ground at the mule’s sudden move. As to the cold? Well, winter was only just beginning.
The three animals set up a loud braying as Maisie took off at a fair clip. Daisy followed in close pursuit, and Lazy, as always, trailed behind the girls at a far less vigorous pace.
“Hey!” Faith cried, rubbing the spot where she’d banged her temple. Now she hurt not only at the back of her head, where she’d hit the hearth the night before, but also to the right and almost at the hairline next to her eye. Perhaps she should have set off toward Bountiful as soon as she’d found the runaway mules after all.
What could have spooked Maisie? Where had those three critters gone now?
“Maisie? Where are you? Daisy…Lazy! Come back.” She looked about at the trees that loomed all around. Her plan of hiding in the darkness of the forest from pursuers during the night didn’t look to be all that wise when examined in the pale gray of the woodland’s dawn.
As she tried to think things through, somewhere close behind her a shot rang out. No, not a shot. The snap of a dead branch cracking under the weight of an approaching person.
Faith jumped up and away from her erstwhile bed as fast as her mules had done moments earlier. Heart pounding, she hastened after her animals, praying she wouldn’t trip on any of the dense forest debris underfoot. Even if it wasn’t someone coming after her, it could be someone out hunting who would mistake the mules—or her—for game. She didn’t want to alert whoever it was to her whereabouts until she knew their identity. But she couldn’t move quickly enough and remain quiet, and she could hear the rustling of someone moving rapidly closer.
“Lookit here! Toldja she’d a-taken off with our—er…my property, dinnent I? She was even talking at ’em—but…where are they? Where’s them mules, Faith?”
As Theo and one of the loggers crashed through the undergrowth right up to her side, his loathsome voice pinned Faith to the spot. Her feet seemed to have become tree roots, her boots uncommonly leaden in weight. Her heart skipped a beat, pounded a flurry of speedy thumps then skipped again, at no time giving her the impression it intended to return to its normal pace. The damp chill of the woods snaked in past the meager protection of her borrowed coat, as the icy fingers of the dawn’s wind crept under the shawl she’d earlier wrapped around her head but by now had loosened and drooped down around her shoulders.
She shuddered, shot looks all around, but found no clear path toward escape. It wouldn’t have helped if she’d found one. Theo pushed his bulk into her line of sight any time she turned even the slightest bit, working his well-padded jaw, waving his arms in wild gyrations, sending condemnation her way from his small, dark eyes.
Bile burned her throat.
Her stomach heaved.
She gagged.
“Don’t jist stand there,” her brother-in-law yelled at her. “Go get them, Faith. Ain’t it bad enough I caught ya trying to make off with ’em? Now you’re gonna jist stand there and watch ’em run? You were a lousy excuse for a wife for my brother, and now you’re even a lousy excuse for a horse thief—”
“Mules,” she said before she could stop herself. “They’re mules, Theo. And I didn’t steal them. I ran from the fire, hoping to make it to the logging camp and get help before the buildings burned away. They followed me, but I got us all lost in the dark. It’s thanks to them I didn’t die frozen during the night.”
“More’s the pity,” the angry man spat out, his voice cracking a time or two. “Why’dja go and kill Roger? Dinnent he give ya a home and food and clothes and all after your kin left ya with nothing at all? He was good enough to keep ya, but you were too good to keep to your vows?”
“I didn’t kill him.” She forced her voice to stay as steady as she could manage. “We had a…disagreement. I…ah…fell and hit my head against the hearth. See?” She turned around and pointed to where her hair was still stiff from the blood she’d shed. “The fall knocked me out. When I came to, I saw Roger lying on the floor. I saw blood, too, his blood—a lot of it. And smoke. The cabin was in flames. Without a doubt, your brother died sometime while I was unconscious. I couldn’t save him. It was too late. Please remember, Roger was a big man, much bigger than I am. I would have died, long before I managed to get his body outside. That’s why I left him in the cabin. I…well, I had to run, to get help.”
Theo spat a glob of chewing tobacco juice at a tree trunk.
Her stomach lurched again.
“Don’t believe none of what ya say,” Theo muttered.
Before she could speak in her defense, another man ran up to her brother-in-law’s side.
“I see…you found…her.” Nathan Bartlett’s words came out choppy, his breath labored. He’d clearly been running for a spell. He turned from Theo to Faith. “Let’s head back. My men are looking for you and the mules. We need to let them know we’ve found you. Are you hurt? How’d you get here? What happened back at the general store?”
As they hurried along the path, Faith struggled to keep up with the tall man. Before long, she’d begun to draw hard, fast breaths. With each question the lumberman fired at her, Faith’s breathing became further impaired. By the time he paused, she could only gasp small gulps of air that didn’t reach the depths of her need.
Her head still throbbed from when she’d fallen against the hearth. The skin on her face stung from the cold wind, and possibly from her rush through the flames at the door. She hadn’t thought to take an inventory of her aches and pains at any time. She’d slept cradled against a dead tree trunk, between two mules, and now she needed to think clearly. The lumberman expected her to make se
nse.
She felt dizzy from the multitude of images spinning through her head.
“I—” She had to stop, rub her temple, try to slow her racing heartbeat, ease her choppy breathing.
“I’m so sorry.” Mr. Bartlett stepped up to her. “I’m forgetting myself. We need to get you to the camp soon. I’m sure you’re near frozen, and you have scrapes and red spots on your cheek and jaw. Woody can see to those.”
Welcome relief swept through her, and she resumed walking. She wanted nothing more than to find the warmth and shelter he offered. “I’m sorry. I hate to put you out, but I’m afraid I’ve nowhere else to go—”
“Don’t fret about that, Mrs. Nolan,” he said, taking her elbow and leading her toward a group of horses tied to trees at the mouth of the trail up ahead. “It’s only neighborly. What any decent, church-going man would do.”
A tentative smile curved her lips, but before she could say anything in response, he paused and turned back to the gathering men. “I’m going ahead with Mrs. Nolan. She’s hurt and needs to warm up and rest. You can catch up to us when you’ve made sure you’ve left no burning embers anywhere.”
“Good thinkin’, boss,” Woody, the older logger, said. “I’ll ride on up with you two. Make sure there’s something hearty to stick to her innards, and some hot coffee to get her blood a-runnin’ again. Or tea. Reckon she looks like a lady what drinks herself some fine tea.”
“I doubt she’ll want your muddy brew,” Mr. Bartlett said, glancing sideways at her, gauging the success of his mild attempt at lightness.
She appreciated his effort, but all she could muster was another weak try at a smile. She certainly didn’t want any “muddy brew” coffee, much less food, since she didn’t think she could swallow a bite, but a cup of tea did sound like a good possibility right then. “Thank you,” she said softly as she wondered how she was going to make it all the way up the trail again.
“Are you ready?” Mr. Bartlett asked.
