by Ginny Aiken
“Of course, it’s possible. Nathan paid when he ordered, so Roger had the cash to get the supplies. He hated giving credit but didn’t mind receiving it from suppliers. Cash was always tight. Someone else might have offered to pay more to get the same supplies without waiting on an order, seeing as how it takes a while to get shipments into Bountiful and then to the store. But I don’t know who that might have been.”
“That’s an interesting possibility. Have you mentioned it to Adam?”
“I haven’t thought much about the fate of the order. I should say something, I suppose.”
“Indeed.” Olivia propped her elbows on her knees as she leaned forward, closer to Faith, her chin on her laced hands. “One might wager that’s the explanation to that odd disappearance—I just am not the wagering kind.”
Faith chuckled. “I’m not either, but you’re likely right. At that moment, though, it didn’t occur to me. I didn’t want to give Roger any opportunity to…‘disappear’ Nathan’s order again.”
A smiling Olivia sat up and clapped. “Good for you!”
Faith waved the cheer away. “Oh, I don’t know about that. It’s just what I did.”
Leaning against the odious bars, she rubbed her forehead, working hard to remember even the slightest of details, since anything had the potential to help clear the cloud of mystery that surrounded those days. “As I said, once the replacement supplies arrived, Roger and I stacked them in the back, as always. Then I watched and waited—not for long, mind you—until he was again…well, indisposed—”
Olivia scoffed. “Oh, piffle! Call it what it is. The man was drunk, Faith. Repulsively full of spirits, is what your husband was.”
Faith couldn’t stop the chuckle. “Very well. I waited until Roger was snoring away late into the morning after he’d had too much to drink. I loaded the mules, and the four of us hurried up the mountain.”
“You went back down after Nate’s men unpacked the mules?”
“That’s right. That’s exactly what I did.”
“What did Roger do when you returned to the cabin?”
“Nothing right away. He was…um…busy with some men who’d come to see him.”
“Busy?” Olivia narrowed her eyes.
Faith shrugged.
“You said men? What men? Who were they? Were they customers placing orders? Or…well, I don’t know. What were they doing with Roger?”
Faith laughed without much humor. “They were drinking. Again. Nothing more than that, certainly not from what I could see. It seems that’s all Roger and Theo ever did with any regularity.”
“Goodness. That man did like his liquor, didn’t he?” Olivia shook her head in what seemed to Faith like growing horror. “You’re telling me he overslept because he’d had too much to drink, and then, by the time you returned from making a delivery he was too drunk to make, he was drinking again? I can’t quite take in such a thing.”
“Do try to imagine it, please, because it happened too many times.”
“Did he say anything when he realized you’d returned?”
“Oh, yes.” She shuddered. “He said we’d ‘discuss’ what I’d done later, after his guests were gone.”
Olivia grimaced. “I’m sure you knew what he meant.”
Faith saw no need to respond.
“How long did they stay? What did you do while they were there?”
“The same thing I did whenever things became too dreadful in the house. I went to the barn, and spent the time with my mules.”
Olivia stood. “Oh, you poor dear!” She hurried to Faith’s side. “You didn’t spend the whole, cold night out there, now, did you? How perfectly dreadful.”
“If I had spent the night with the animals, it wouldn’t have been the first time, nor would it have been the worst thing to happen. The worst usually came later, when Roger let loose his temper.”
Olivia covered her lips to try and muffle her gasp. It didn’t work.
Then she reached out and embraced her friend.
“Don’t, please. Don’t let it upset you.” Faith stepped back and squeezed her friend’s hand. “It was dreadful, yes, but well before I took the first step up the mountain, I knew what would come once I returned.”
“Even knowing, you went ahead with your plans?”
“I did what I had to do, what I knew the Lord expected from me.”
Olivia nodded, kindness and understanding in her expression. Then, to Faith’s surprise, her expression changed, this time to disgust.
“Bah!” she said, turning to pace a few steps in the other direction. “I’ll never understand men. How those silly creatures can think you would hurt, much less kill, that fool Roger…well, it’s not something I can fathom.”
“Don’t be too harsh with them. Even I can’t be sure what happened.”
Olivia crossed her arms. “You were unconscious. How could you do anything, lying down?”
“I can’t be sure about what went on. Clearly, someone struck Roger in the head. They…they killed him. Then they set the store on fire. But I have no idea who might have arrived while I lay unconscious. How could I know? All I know for certain is that he was killed. I didn’t witness the killing. And then, the cabin was in flames when I opened my eyes. Of that I’m sure. But I don’t know who did it…and I want to know. Believe me, I need to know.” Again, she rubbed her forehead, which by now throbbed mightily. “I might not remember because of the blow to my head, you know.”
“Who do you think could have done it?”
Faith sighed. “I reckon just about anyone. Roger was no one’s favorite.” She glanced down. The pain she suffered when she saw the truth of the man she’d married returned. “He never became mine.”
“Pffft!” Olivia waved. “What about the church money?”
When Faith couldn’t answer on account of her tight throat, Olivia shook her head. “Oh, never you mind. I reckon that’s the same situation as with what happened in the cabin, since you were hit. That knot on your head and the blood in your hair…I hear it was plenty hard to miss.” She gave a disdainful sniff. “How absurd to think you could be as honorable and decent as to deliver Nate’s supplies when you knew—knew, mind you—that Roger would…would pummel you for it later, and yet steal the princely sum of twenty-four dollars and seventy-three cents from the church.”
Faith couldn’t help but laugh at Olivia’s indignation. “Put that way, it does sound silly, doesn’t it?”
“Silly?” Her friend stomped her black-booted foot, then resumed her pacing. “It’s far worse than silly, Faith. It’s purely ludicrous for these men to even waste a thought on such a stupid notion.”
Aware that she was arguing against herself, Faith had to be honest. “You must accept reality. I can’t explain much to anyone’s satisfaction.”
Olivia halted her agitated march. “What do you mean?”
“We can’t get away from the truth. I was the only person in the cabin with Roger, and there’s nothing I can say about how he died and how the cabin caught fire. Same thing with the cash box at the church.”
“Crazy. Plumb crazy, Faith Nolan.” Olivia shook her head. “Are you trying to tell me you lost consciousness, and while you were unconscious you up and killed that brute—forgive me, I know he was your husband, but he was a brute—and then took kerosene and a match to your home? You could do this while you were still unconscious?”
“We-ell…”
“Well, nothing. That’s pure absurdity, Faith Nolan.”
“The way you describe it does sound ridiculous, but I can’t be absolutely certain I didn’t do those…those dreadful things before I hit my head. I might not be able to remember on account of the injury. That I do know happened, because I bled enough out the back of my head to outrage Woody up at the camp.”
Olivia tilted her head and studied Faith. “Why don’t you tell me a mite more about that quarrel, as you like to call it? Tell me each last, bitty thing you can recollect about the fireplace po
ker.”
Faith told Olivia how Roger had made them wait in the sitting room in that awkward silence. She described how they’d waited until he was certain Theo had gone far enough down the mountain trail to not hear what was about to happen back at the cabin. She told her friend how Roger had scolded her, how he’d raged at her, and she told her friend how she’d eventually stood, fed up with Roger and his unreasonable anger, and begun to resist.
“I do recollect reaching for the fireplace iron as clearly as if I’d done it a minute ago,” she said. “And I remember Roger grabbing the other end. We each tugged, back and forth a few times. And then I tripped.”
“Tripped, huh?” Olivia’s expression turned speculative. “Did you really trip? All on your own? Or did Roger push you?”
“No matter how hard I try, I can’t bring back a single clear memory of that particular moment.” She shook her head. “He might have. I do know I fell. I also remember the horrid sensation of the world dropping away from me, and the darkness that swallowed me immediately after that.”
“Did you have the poker in your hand when you came back to?”
Faith thought and thought, but eventually had to shake her head again. “I have no recollection of the poker after I fell, so I don’t think I did.”
Olivia tried again. “Do you think he might have taken it or do you think you dropped it in the fall?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know…I can’t remember.”
“It’s madness to suggest you might have done anything wrong, much less criminal.”
“Well, then,” Faith said, challenge in her voice. “If you’re so certain it wasn’t me, then pray tell, who?”
They considered a list of names.
“There’s always Theo,” Olivia said. “You’ve said they always argued.”
“True, but he still cared for his brother. You can see it even now. He’s grieving, if in his own odd way.”
Olivia thought for a bit. “How about those Army fellows? You said the captain and others, too, were there that night. One of them, maybe?”
“I must ask you the biggest question, then. Why? Why would any of them kill my husband? They all got along, and he entertained them. They wouldn’t have wanted to put an end to those times.”
“How about the other customers? You said sheep farmers shopped there, too.” She raised her eyebrows and jabbed a finger in the air toward her friend. “Aha! The Indians. Didn’t you say they shopped there from time to time? That laggards still stopped by? Did any of them especially like Roger?”
Faith shrugged. “I wouldn’t say any of them especially liked Roger, but I also can’t say any of them loathed him enough to kill him.”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Olivia burst out. “I don’t know who killed that man, but you certainly didn’t do it while laid out cold on that floor, bleeding out the back of your head, and all.”
After Olivia’s pronouncement, Faith couldn’t persuade her friend to even entertain the possibility of her guilt. On the one hand, Olivia’s staunch defense was gratifying. On the other, she hoped the men wouldn’t think the two of them had come up with a story to excuse criminal acts simply because they’d become friends. They parted shortly after that, with Olivia’s final words hanging between them.
“Your name…let it be as a reminder to you.” Her friend’s eyes twinkled. “Have faith in our Father. You’re always in His loving care. Have faith.”
“I’ve been here long enough,” Nathan told Eli and Olivia as Cooky cleared the supper table that night. Eli had dismissed the children, who’d argued, making clear they should be allowed to stay up with “Uncle” Nate. “I must be getting back to the camp. I am the one responsible there.”
Eli arched a brow. “You’re telling me you’re prepared to leave town before the judge gets here? Before the trial? Before we learn Mrs. Nolan’s fate?”
A sick sensation swam in Nathan’s middle, especially uncomfortable after, if unrelated to, supper. “I don’t want to, but I have a duty to my men.”
“Have you learned anything that makes you think Woody’s had trouble up there?”
“No, Eli, I haven’t.” Sometimes Nathan wished his friend weren’t quite so direct. “It’s more a matter where I can’t see my way clear to surrendering my responsibilities onto his shoulders.”
“Vastly capable shoulders, at that.”
Nathan smiled. “You’re persistent, you know. Yes, he’s quite capable. That’s why I hired him in the first place.”
“I don’t know,” Olivia said after sitting quietly for far longer than Nathan remembered her doing in a long while. Her speculative expression made him uneasy. “It would seem you also bear responsibility toward Faith.”
“What?” He shook his head, hoping to clear it. “What responsibility could I have toward a virtual stranger?”
Satisfaction filled her broad smile. “Her troubles, these latest ones, began after she took your order to the camp.”
The guilt he’d carried since that fact had dawned on him a week earlier returned. He fought it with all he had. “Do you mean to say that decision of hers makes me responsible for her louse of a husband and his sorry way of running his store?”
“No, Nathan.” Her voice practically dripped excessive patience. “The responsibility comes when you consider how that brute she married treated her to his anger because she went to the camp to do what was right in the Lord’s eyes.”
He sucked in air as though Olivia had leveled a blow to his midsection instead of hurling words his way. She’d given voice to the thoughts he’d tried to avoid since the morning of the fire.
Unwilling to continue with that conversation, he tried to divert her attention. “Maybe, but I’m still not a man who can simply sit and do absolutely nothing. I’ll go right crazy.”
Eli chuckled. “You could always come to the bank with me, partner. You do remember your position there, don’t you?”
“I remember. Silent partner’s what I agreed to, what I’ve always been.”
“But when you have nothing better to do with your time, it wouldn’t hurt you to come take a look at the bank’s current situation. We’re coming out of the problems caused by the drought and the grasshoppers quite nicely. Slowly, yes, very slowly, but at a steady pace.”
He stood and paced. “I’m not sure, Eli. What do I know of banking?”
“Enough that you’ve said you need more funds than just for the flume, but not enough to know what that means to the bank,” Eli countered. “That flume’s taking a good part of the bank’s liquidity, since we’re still holding a number of the farmers’ and ranchers’ mortgages. Now you’ve said you’ll be needing money for the road, as well. You should spend time looking over the books. I promise not to let it become too painful a chore.”
“Excellent idea.” Olivia pushed back her chair. “That’ll keep you busy here in town until the judge arrives.”
Nathan raised his arms in surrender. “Fine, but I’m heading down to the River Run Hotel. Can’t be abusing your hospitality any longer.”
Olivia frowned. “Have we done anything to give your that silly notion? We truly enjoy having you stay here with us. And the children especially love their Uncle Nate.”
He smiled, remembering his latest chess game with Luke, and Randy’s recent inquisition as to the merits of blue hair ribbons versus rose. “I’ll admit I love them, too.”
She stood, a satisfied smile on her lovely face, and headed for the door to the hall. “Then it’s settled. I’ll let Faith know your decision. I’m sure she’ll appreciate your support.”
Before he could stop himself, he blurted out, “I don’t know that I can offer her my support. I can’t stand behind a person who’s done what she stands accused of doing. Never, Olivia. Do you understand?”
Standing in the doorway, Olivia faced him. “But she’s innocent—”
“You think she’s innocent.” His gut roiled at the thought of Faith actually killing Roger, of her trying t
o kill Parham. And then, stealing the church’s offering…
He wanted to prove her innocence, he had all along, but as the days went by and the events piled up, his determination on her behalf took on tints of doubt. Evidence against Faith continued to mount. He’d always been a practical man, prided himself on his common sense. He couldn’t discount what a whole town had seen.
Still, he couldn’t deny Faith Nolan’s vulnerability, not to mention her delicate beauty, tugged on his emotions. And there lay his problem. What part were his conflicted emotions playing in his internal turmoil? How much were his feelings affecting his reason?
Were his gentle feelings for Faith pushing him to seek to prove her innocent while he discounted the growing evidence of her possible guilt?
“For everyone’s sake,” he said, striving to keep his fear for Faith, his growing anxiety and desire to do right by her and the town of Bountiful, from coloring his words, “I hope you’re right. I hope she’s as innocent as you say. All this violence, the killing…” He shuddered. “I can’t stomach any more of it. Never.”
Olivia excused herself, saying she needed to inspect the children’s schoolwork for the next day. Eli and Nathan moved into the parlor, where Cooky brought them a fresh pot of coffee and delightful apple-spice pastries. They settled in, at first discussing bank matters in general terms. Then the discussion turned toward Faith once again.
“You know,” Eli said, “the outcome of the trial isn’t certain, and that troubles me. No matter how evenhanded the judge might be.”
Nathan hated to hear his concerns voiced. It made them seem more substantial, more threatening. “I’ve thought about that. But I do believe the trial is needed.”
“I didn’t say otherwise.”
Nathan set down his coffee cup and met his friend’s gaze. “I’ll grant you that I’d much rather we prove Faith innocent, but we haven’t found anything to prove—prove, mind you, not speculate—that someone other than her was at the general store that night. No one has found anything that might point blame away from Faith and onto anyone else.”
