by Susan Page Davis, Darlene Franklin, Pamela Griffin, Lisa Harris
“Which they won’t tomorrow.”
A man on horseback approached the bridge from the side heading into town. Pastor Beaton carried a rifle swung over his back and a pack on the horse, probably filled with his Bible and other things that would bring solace to the more far-flung families of his parish. He had been an army chaplain in his earlier life, spending ten years in the military, including service in Mexico, before he became their pastor.
The horse’s hooves alerted them to his passage across the bridge. He paused on their side of the bridge, only a few feet away from their hiding place, and dropped the toll in the waiting box. They could see the underbelly of the horse, the slightly worn leather of the girth that needed to be replaced, but the pastor appeared to have no knowledge of their presence. Clara followed his passage until he disappeared a few yards past the bridge.
“Satisfied?” Daniel grinned.
“When do I need to be here?”
Chapter 13
Lewis dashed Clara’s last hopes of escaping oncoming events when he left home before dinner on Friday night, telling her not to wait for him. When she arose early in the morning—so early some might call it a late night instead—he hadn’t returned to his room. He had taken the bait.
During the few minutes it took her to assemble food for breakfast and lunch, she hoped Lewis would breeze in, even if he stank like a drunk skunk. If he came back, she might tell him the gold shipment was a trap, that he should stay as far away from the bridge as possible.
She shivered, the kitchen cold without the heat of the stove, and wondered if she could keep up the pretense.
In the end, her hesitation hadn’t mattered. Lewis hadn’t come home. She dressed in breeches—not wanting to give any passersby reason to wonder why a woman would wander alone outside at that time of night—tucked a pistol into the waistband, and left the house as the moon started to set.
Daniel hadn’t wanted her to walk so far, but what choice did she have? If Lewis spotted Misty at the bridge, he would suspect trouble. Even if she left the mare in town, Lewis might still be suspicious. No, she would do better to arrive on foot and leave Misty at home. She had plenty of time. In the cool reaches of the night, she practiced the swagger that men seemed to use when walking. What had Daniel said once? “You’re all woman, from the pretty curls on top of your head to your tiny feet.” Her face burned with the memory, and she felt under the brim of her cap for her curls. None had escaped, at least not yet, and no one could see the size of her feet in the dark. So perhaps she could pass for a male.
The sky had changed to a shade lighter than black by the time she reached town. A dark figure approached her out of the shadows, and she jumped.
“It’s me.” A deep voice she recognized as Daniel’s reassured her. He drew near and pulled back his cap, revealing the banked embers of his eyes in the pale light of his face. He fell into step beside her. “I would tuck my arm beneath yours, but people might wonder why I was walking arm in arm with another man.” She felt a ripple of silent laughter pass down his side. “You didn’t fool me, though.”
“You knew I was headed this way.”
“True. Do you want some coffee? I have some on the stove in the jail. Fresh made, so it’s not undrinkable yet.”
She glanced at the still, dark sky and gauged she had some time to spare. But staying in the light and warmth of the jail only delayed the inevitable. “My nerves are already frayed. I don’t need something else to make it worse. Another time.” When I’m visiting my brother in jail. “Have any plans changed since yesterday?”
“Nothing you need to know about.” He stopped beneath a tree at the southwest corner of the common. “Go as far as the bridge. Brent Frisk will meet you there.” He gripped her left arm with his right. “Do you want to call the whole plan off? We can, even now.” Shoulders rigid with tension, he looked as though he might crack apart into a dozen separate pieces, and his fingers bit into her skin.
Tears sprang to her eyes, but not from the pain. “No. Lewis must accept responsibility for his actions.”
“I wish …” He cleared his throat. “I wish things didn’t have to be this way.”
He released her, and she caught hold of him instead. “I do as well. I wish you didn’t have to put yourself in harm’s way because of my brother’s actions.”
She stared into his eyes, and in an instant they blazed from banked coals to a raging fire. He pulled her to himself in a tight embrace, kissed her briefly on the lips, and released her. “Go.”
The cry rent her heart.
Daniel waited beneath the tree until even the smudge of Clara’s shadow disappeared in the distance. He wanted to run after her. To at least sit with her in the dark cave, to keep her company and comfort her as she waited for the inevitable. But he had a different role to play in the day’s events.
I wish you didn’t have to put yourself in harm’s way. Oh, Clara, if she only knew. He would stand between her and death and pour out his lifeblood, if need be. Due to a last-minute change of plans, however, he didn’t anticipate any true danger today.
At length he shook himself out of his reverie. If anyone caught sight of him lingering at the corner of the green, staring down the road when the moon had fallen and no light existed to see by, they would wonder about the object of his thoughts. Across the common, footsteps scurried down the street, probably Fannie on her way to the café to begin the day’s baking. In another hour, he might be able to convince her to serve him a cup of her ridiculous coffee and a hot-from-the-oven cinnamon bun before riding out to keep his appointment with doom at the bridge.
Daniel hadn’t done more than doze last night, so he should have felt exhausted, but his eyes stayed open as they had before many a battle. No amount of counting sheep jumping over fences had put him to sleep. A short nap might refresh him, if he could manage it. He unlocked one of the cells and stretched out on the thin mattress. In the corner, he heard a scuffling and half expected a mouse to crawl up his leg. A smile lifted his lips at the memory of Clara’s fear of the mouse on the bridge. Not long ago, Hiram’s cat had had a litter of kittens. He’d grab one of them as a mouser.
Something creaked, and he bolted upright, staring into the inky blackness of the office. “Who’s there?” Grabbing his revolver, he ran to his office, only to feel a breeze pushing past cracks in the door.
He went back to the cell but gave up on sleep. Bending over, he found the tiny hole where the mouse had disappeared at the approach of the big human ogre. Could anything fill up the hole so a small creature couldn’t crawl through? The floor could use a thorough sweeping. Lye soap and bleach might be needed to soak the smells out of the walls.
At last he judged enough time had passed that he could pretend it was the start of an ordinary day. First off, he’d make a quick stop at the house to shave the whiskers from his cheeks and change clothes into something unremarkable.
Half an hour later, when the grandfather clock in the parlor announced five o’clock of the morning, he left the house as refreshed as clean clothes and cold water could make him. By this hour, he could squeak into the café. He needed to be around people before he set out on his quest for his imagined opponent, a dark, evil shadow who wanted to haunt his dreams at night. Something of even less substance than the mouse and her babies.
A single lamp on the front table in the café provided all the light for the dining room that morning. Light gleamed from the kitchen. “Fannie?”
She came out, still wearing an apron dotted with flour. Not everyone knew that Fannie baked all the pastries for the café herself, although she depended on a cook for meals. “You’re early.” She wiped her hands on the apron before removing it and hanging it on a peg. “Let me light more lamps.”
“I’ll just take a cup of coffee and a cinnamon roll. I’ve got to get going.” He settled down by the front table, where the one lamp provided sufficient light. Fannie poured him a cup of coffee and bustled into the kitchen. She returned a few minut
es later with the requested roll and a slice of ham, quickly browned. “It isn’t much, but a man needs more than a sweet roll to keep him going.”
Daniel let the roll melt in his mouth and chewed down the ham between swallows of the coffee. From his seat, he saw Simeon passing by and longed to call him in. Daniel could imagine Fannie’s reaction if that happened.
Mr. Tuttle! I suppose you want to join your brother? And what brings the two of you out so early this morning? Knowing Fannie, she would pass on the news to all of her customers.
No, that wouldn’t do at all. In a few hours’ time, the whole town might buzz with the coming affair at the bridge, but until then, Daniel needed to stick as closely as possible to his usual schedule. He finished the meal a tad more quickly than usual and left money on the table. “Keep the change.” He headed out the door.
The sky had moved from pale gray to pale blue shot with brilliant pinks and yellows in the east. He returned to the jail. One last time, he checked that his pistol was loaded and ready for action. His saddle was fixed to receive the money bags. He climbed onto his horse. The gelding sensed his direction, for before Daniel even flicked his reins, he’d turned his nose in the direction of the bridge. When Daniel’s shift of the rein confirmed the direction, he set off at a trot. The temperature this morning was about ten degrees higher than yesterday morning; no frost hardened the ground, and the ride went as quietly as it could with four hooves hitting the ground at regular intervals.
Daniel’s nerves itched to give Spotty his head and let him gallop, but the horse might need his wind later. Besides, if he hurried, he might arrive at the bridge too early. At most, he wanted to arrive half an hour before the carriage from Burlington. They had planned to leave before daylight to make the rendezvous.
When Daniel reached the bridge, he dismounted, casually scanning the area for signs of another presence. He led Spotty to the side of the road and tethered him to a tree. Daylight caught him pacing back and forth like an army sentry in front of the east entrance to the bridge. From there, the men waiting in the cave could see him, as well as anyone in or under the bridge. The last rays of the rising sun might distort their vision for a few vital seconds, long enough to give him an advantage.
Fifteen minutes remained, twenty at most. Every drop of coffee he’d drunk over the past twenty-four hours stretched his eyesight. He felt like he could see to the depths of the earth and all the way to California, but in reality he couldn’t even see the cave on the far side of the river.
He hoped that didn’t prove a fatal error.
Clara counted Daniel’s steps as he paced back and forth. Forward march, ten steps. About face. Ten steps return. Each step as carefully measured as if his feet knew the width of the bridge and could pace it blindfolded. Something about his determined pace troubled her.
“Miss Farley.” Frisk, one of Daniel’s deputies, tapped her on the shoulder. “I need to change places with you.”
She stepped back. How foolish of her, staring like a spectator when the men in the cave with her needed to watch for Daniel’s safety.
Daniel’s safety. “He’s setting himself up as a target.” She wanted to scream, to run out of the cave and tell him to go away.
“Stay still, ma’am. We won’t let anything happen to the captain.”
The ground overhead trembled, suggesting the approach of the carriage. Several stones tumbled down the slope and crashed into the water, and Clara leaned past Frisk far enough to see half a dozen men crawl from beneath the bridge.
Rifle shots rang out. When the smoke cleared, Daniel had disappeared from view.
Chapter 14
Clara jolted to her feet, poised to dash out the entrance.
The carriage, with Dixon and two other men she didn’t recognize, continued full speed onto the bridge.
The men from the cave raced to join them. Only Frisk paused long enough to yell. “Stay in the cave! Captain’s orders.”
I won’t stay behind. I’m not defenseless. She grabbed the pistol she had tucked in the waistband of her breeches. Her racing heart jumped ahead of her onto the road, but she forced herself to check her surroundings. All the action remained at the far side of the bridge, and she dashed forward.
She took a second at the entrance to the bridge to let her eyes adjust to the semi-darkness of the interior. The reverberating echoes sounded like she imagined an earthquake would, the monstrous noise threatening to tear down the bridge and everyone on it. Horses’ hooves pounded on the planks like sledgehammers. A dozen men’s voices snarled together, a black cloud of incomprehensible noise. Her mind catalogued the sounds. She heard more pounding of fists and shouts than gunfire and took small comfort in that. After her eyes had adjusted, she crept forward. “That does it!”
Daniel had his good arm around the neck of one of the assailants, dressed in the same hat and bandanna she had seen at the bank.
“You think you have it easy because you’re dealing with a crippled man?”
Clara hardly recognized the raspy voice as Daniel’s.
“You think you can have your way in my town!” He yanked his arm so hard that the man flailed for breath.
The handkerchief slid down from his nose under the pressure of Daniel’s arm, and Clara recognized the face of one of the Whitson twins—Rod, she believed. Where Whitson was, Lewis would not be far behind, but none of the figures in front of her reminded her of her brother.
“I’ve got him.” Dixon appeared at Daniel’s side and tied Whitson’s hands together. Daniel gave his neck a final tug before he let him go.
They tied each man’s hands together and then tied the robbers to each other. Daniel walked by and whisked the hats off their heads. “The Whitson twins. Whimsey, Bradford, Dupre, Ford.” He spit out each name. “Not a one of you is missing.”
No one except, that is, for—Lewis.
“Surprised?” A low voice spoke in her ear, and she screamed. All the men froze in place for so long that the robbers could have escaped if they weren’t already bound.
“Clara!” Daniel’s voice, half exultant, half exasperated, boomed and echoed through the bridge chamber. “I thought I told you to stay in the cave.”
“You were in danger.” Her voice quavered. “The shots …” She realized how silly she sounded, as if she, a lone woman, could protect him if all his accomplices had failed.
“I was never in any danger.” Daniel’s eyes blazed in the dark, and he crossed the space between them in a few easy strides. “Not with Lewis on my side.” He draped his arm over Lewis’s shoulders.
“I have a lot to tell you.” Lewis said, low enough so that only she and Daniel could hear.
“What happened?” She stared at the two men, one of whom she had loved since childhood, the other who had become dear to her over the past few weeks. She wanted to bang their heads together for letting her worry so, about both of them.
Daniel shut the door on his protesting prisoners and turned the key until the lock clicked into place. “Fannie will bring you supper. It’s too late for lunch.” She would have brought food—if only to hear the news firsthand—but he wanted them to squirm a little bit. He turned to his deputy. “You sure you don’t mind staying?”
Dixon sat behind the desk, feet planted on the ground. Daniel felt sure that his face mirrored the foolish grin on his friend’s. The accused robbers would stay in the Maple Notch jail until they were taken to the county seat for trial. Until that day came, Daniel and Dixon would take turns guarding them. “Go on with you. Get down to that girl of yours before she decides you’re not coming.”
Daniel laughed as he hadn’t in years. On his way out the door, he reached for his forage cap where it hung on its peg, then dropped his hand. The time had come to put Captain Tuttle behind him. Daniel was more than ready to be a civilian lawman. He had grown into the name of Constable Tuttle.
He found Lewis and Clara in the café. They must have gone home, because Clara had exchanged her breeches for a lavender
gingham dress. Her face shone with greater color than usual, her excitement at the morning’s events evident in her features. He joined them at the table.
“I ordered for all of us. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Good idea. So, Lewis, have you told Clara our plans for this afternoon?”
He shook his head. “I was waiting for you.”
Clara punched her brother in the arm. “He hasn’t told me anything, only that I would have to wait for you.” The smile on her face faded. “Lewis, you knew I suspected you.”
“And you were right.” Lewis screwed his face into tight lines. “I did take part in the first robbery, helped them gain entrance for the second, and gave them information about today’s shipment.”
The look Clara threw Daniel’s way let him know she wondered if her brother should be confessing all of this in front of the constable. She didn’t know he had already heard the whole story.
Fannie arrived with the sandwiches—thick slices of roast beef with mustard on fine wheat bread, with a side dish of potato salad. Daniel knew she wanted to learn the news. “Give us a few minutes, Fannie. I’ll tell you all about it later.”
A mutinous look on her face let him know later wouldn’t be as satisfying as now, but she nodded. “I’ll bring you out a pitcher so you can refill your own glasses, and then I’ll leave you alone.”
The lunch hour had passed, and with Fannie’s departure, they had privacy. Daniel decided to put Clara’s worries to rest. “Lewis came to me late last night. Told me about their plan to rob the shipment today at the bridge and offered to help me stop them.”
“Wasn’t I surprised when he told me they wanted us to make the attempt, but I could help.” Lewis’s part involved making sure the guns had no ammunition or would misfire. He also promised to warn Daniel of their approach.
“The rocks hitting the water,” she remembered.
“We wanted to catch them red-handed, you see.”
