by Kaki Warner
A private joke, Ash decided, amused by the heated glances passing between the sheriff and his wife. He looked at Maddie, seated beside him, wondering if she had noticed. She was smiling as she watched them, but it was such a sad, wistful smile, he felt a tug deep inside his chest.
His Maddie. His wife. But would she ever be completely his own? For all her passion and tender words, he sensed there was a small part of herself she wouldn’t share with him. And he dinna know why.
Laughter across the room drew his attention, and he looked over to see Miss Hathaway tying a length of cloth over Edwina Brodie’s eyes.
That was when Tricks, roused from his nap beside Ash’s chair, lifted his head and stared intently at the window.
Ash followed his gaze. He knew the window overlooked the backyard and stable, but all he saw was lamplight reflected in the glass panes.
He studied the dog.
Tricks showed no agitation, only curiosity.
A wandering cat, perhaps. Or a rider passing by on the road.
Resting his hand on the wolfhound’s head, he murmured softly to him in Gaelic. When Tricks took no notice and his dark gaze remained fixed on the window, Ash caught Brodie’s eye and gave a slight nod.
Without stirring from his slouched position, Ash leaned over and whispered into Maddie’s ear, “Have I mentioned today, lass, how much I love you?”
“W-What?”
“I love you.”
She reared back to blink at him. “Now, Ash?” As if startled by the loudness of her blurted response, she glanced around to see if anyone else had heard, then lowered her voice. “You finally get around to saying it and you do it here? In front of all these people?”
“I’ve told you many times, lass, so I have.”
“You most certainly have not. I would have remembered.”
Reaching over, he gently cupped her cheek. His hand looked big and clumsy and battered against the pale perfection of her skin. “Sweet Maddie,” he said softly. “A ghra mo chroi.”
“What?”
“Tha gaol mor agam ort.”
“I don’t speak Gaelic. What does that mean?”
He kissed her lightly. “I’ll tell you later, love. Or, better yet, I’ll show you.” He kissed her again, then straightened in the chair. “But right now, Tricks needs to go out.” Gratified by her look of consternation, he rose and left the room. As he and Tricks moved down the hall toward the kitchen, he heard the sheriff ask if anyone wanted more coffee.
A moment later, as Ash was tying a lead rope around the wolfhound’s neck, Brodie came through the kitchen doorway. “What’s wrong?” the sheriff asked.
“I’m not sure. But the lad senses something is amiss.” Pulling his pistol from his coat on a hook beside the door, Ash checked the load, snapped the chamber closed, and pushed the gun into the waistband of his trousers. “If I’m not back in ten minutes,” he instructed as he donned his coat, “come seek me.” After closing the door behind him, he paused on the porch long enough for his eyes to adjust, then stepped into the yard.
Ash had excellent vision at night, but even without it, the near full moon rising over the mountains in the east cast enough light through the trees to light his way.
Tricks led him toward the barn, tugging against the rope in a determined way, but showing no intent to give chase. He stopped before the double doors, sniffed at the ground, then at the slide bar.
Ash saw that the doors were ajar—not the way he and Brodie had left them earlier. Gripping his pistol in one hand and Tricks’s rope in the other, he shouldered the door open and peered inside.
Silence. The smell of sweet feed and alfalfa and horses. Moonlight illuminating the inside walkway with a pale glow.
Nothing moved. He listened but heard only the sounds of horses resting quietly in their stalls. A long, dark head peered over one of the half doors—Brodie’s big gelding—but he showed no alarm.
Ash let go of the rope.
Tricks moved quickly past the stalls, nose to the ground. Stopping outside the tack and feed room, he cocked his head and listened, then lifted a paw and pushed against the door.
It swung open and he went inside.
A voice, then a laugh Ash recognized. Shoving the pistol back into his waistband, he stepped forward and looked into the room.
Pale strips of moonlight shining through the slats of the exterior wall fell across a figure huddled in a corner, laughing as Tricks licked his dirty face. Ash let out a breath. “Hello, Silas,” he said.
The lad almost jumped out a foot off the ground. By the time he recovered from his fright and Ash had gotten the lantern lit, Brodie had arrived, which scared the lad all over again. They had just gotten him calmed down a second time when the ladies burst in, this time startling Ash so badly he almost drew his pistol.
“Aha!” Edwina Brodie crowed from the doorway, hands on hips. “Didn’t I tell you something was going on, ladies? Didn’t I?”
Miss Hathaway and Maddie appeared at Edwina’s shoulder, gawking like deer caught in a sudden flare of light.
“Christamighty, Ed!” Holstering his own pistol, Brodie dragged a hand across his face. “Don’t you know not to come sneaking around in the middle of the night?”
“Don’t you?” she countered. “And just what are you two doing out here—oh my goodness! Is that Silas?”
“Mercy, he’s been hurt!”
“Oh, you poor dear!”
Like a stampede of unschooled horses, the three women rushed into the small room, all talking at once and stirring up dust and such a ruckus Ash had to resort to drill commands to reestablish order.
“There’s no need to shout, dearest. You’re frightening Silas.”
“What happened?” Miss Hathaway demanded, gently wiping dirt from the boy’s bruised face.
“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Ash snapped, which earned him another chiding look from his wife.
“Is this it?” Brodie made a show of looking around. “Is anyone else coming? Because I don’t want to have to go through this again.”
His wife patted his arm. “Everyone else has retired. Now stop fussing and tell us what’s going on.”
“Ask him.”
They all turned and looked expectantly at Silas.
It took a while, but once the lad was convinced he wasn’t in trouble and no one was going to hurt him, he finally blurted out the sorry tale. Ash followed as best he could, mentally filling in the omitted details.
He wasn’t really Silas Zucker, the lad tearfully admitted, but Silas Cochran, and his brother was Cletus Cochran, but he was pretending to be another man—Reverend Zucker—because he wanted the smiling man’s—Ephraim Zucker’s—gold. But the picture lady—Maddie—didn’t know where the smiling man’s cabin was, and Clete was mad because of what Silas did—which he wouldn’t talk about—so his brother got Bud Purvis to help him, who was even meaner than Clete and had a tarantula, and they made Si promise to keep watch over the picture lady until they got back.
“Got back from where?” Ash asked.
“I don’t know.”
Luckily, Brodie intervened before Ash started shaking the lad. “Could they have gone to the cabin?”
“I don’t know. I think they were following the fat man and the Indian, but I’m not sure. I’m hungry. Do you have any food?”
“Sure.” Brodie sent Miss Hathaway to get something from the kitchen, then asked Maddie if it would be all right if Si slept in her wagon.
Maddie looked at the filthy lad, then backed up a step. “Perhaps if you bathed him first.”
“Maybe tomorrow. For now, let’s just make a bed for him out here. Ash, get your bedroll.”
Ash had seen the lad scratching, too, and was as wary as his wife. “I’d rather you get yours.”
In the end, Maddie suggested he use Mr. Satterwhite’s bedroll, which was still in the storage box attached to the underside of the wagon. After she and Edwina went to get it
, Ash turned to Brodie. “I’m leaving for the cabin.”
“Now?”
“There’s a near full moon.”
“You don’t even know where it is.”
“Out toward Blue River. We crossed that road coming in. And Thomas described the bluff by the cabin well enough. Besides, I’ll have Tricks. Do you have something of Thomas’s I can let him smell?”
Brodie rummaged through a pouch hanging on a hook, then pulled out one of Thomas’s town shirts.
Ash stuffed it into his saddlebag. “You’ll watch Maddie while I’m gone. There’s only you now.”
Brodie looked surprised. “You’re expecting trouble here?”
Ash glanced at Silas, who was happily trading fleas with Tricks, and wondered how much of what the lad had said could be relied upon. “If his brother follows Thomas and the reverend to the cabin and realizes the claim papers aren’t there, where else would he look but here?”
“They’d have to go through Thomas first.”
“Aye. That’s what I’m afraid of.”
Ash was in the center aisle, saddling Lurch when Maddie came back. Sending Edwina on into the feed room with the bedroll, she came toward him. He paused to watch her. She seemed to glow in the slanting moonlight—a wee highland fairy come to life, and so beautiful it brought a catch to his breath.
“You’re going after Thomas,” she said, stopping beside him.
He finished buckling the bridle, then turned to face her, one hand resting on Lurch’s neck. “Aye. He could be riding into an ambush.” If he hadn’t already done so.
“So could you.” Reaching up, she took his face in her soft hands and looked hard into his eyes. “You come back to me, Angus Wallace,” she said fiercely. “I’ll not be parted from you again.”
He drew her tight against his body. If he could, he would have pulled her all the way into his chest to keep her near his heart forever. “Tha gaol agam ort,” he whispered into her hair. I love you.
She drew back, and rising on tiptoe, pressed her lips to his. It was less a show of passion than possession, and he answered it with all the love he held for this fey creature who was his wife. When the kiss ended and she stepped back, her eyes were wet and her smile wobbly. “Guard yourself well, dearest. Moi aussi, je t’aime.”
“I dinna speak French. What does that mean?”
“I’ll show you when you get back.”
For the first two hours, Ash and Tricks made good time because the road was well defined and no clouds obscured the moon. But when the track branched off toward Breckenridge, it began to climb sharply and trees often blocked the moonlight. Ash pulled Lurch back to a walk and tried to curb his impatience. Twice they surprised elk in the road and once chased off a bear that was digging at a rotten stump. Tricks knew better than to give chase, and they moved steadily on. Other than night birds and the distant howl of wolves, the night was quiet except for the rhythmic clomp of Lurch’s shod hooves on the hard-packed dirt.
The higher they went, the colder it grew. Ash pulled the collar of his fleece-lined jacket higher, pinning the warmth of his woolen scarf over his ears. Even though he wore gloves, he frequently changed hands on the reins so he could slip the other beneath his jacket and under his arm to warm it up again. His breath dampened the scarf that lay over his mouth and nose, and after a while, the wool was crusted with ice.
Later, when the sky had begun to lighten into that gunmetal blue that preceded dawn, they came to another junction in the road. Ash reined in and studied the crude sign nailed to a tree.
Two letters looked nearly the same—like eights, or bs or ps. Blue River? He pulled Thomas’s shirt from his saddlebag and held it down for Tricks to sniff.
The hound showed no interest and plopped on the ground, panting.
Realizing he had been pushing the animals too hard, Ash returned the shirt to the saddlebag and dismounted. He stood for a moment, listening, and heard the faint trickle of water off in the brush. Leading Lurch toward it, he found a seep of water running down into a puddle in a wee clearing.
He broke the ice with his boot heel, refilled his canteen, then let the animals drink. After loosening Lurch’s girth and removing his snaffle so the horse could graze the sparse grass in the clearing, he settled against a downed log to wait for more light, hoping by then he might be able to spot the peak Thomas had mentioned. If not, he would have to go into Breckenridge and ask.
He must have dozed off. When next he opened his eyes, sunlight gilded the treetops and Tricks was chewing on something—something with hair, and by the smell, none too fresh.
Ash tightened Lurch’s cinch, slipped his bridle on, then mounted and headed back to the road.
Faces the Dawn. That was the Indian name for the peak he sought. And an hour later, as they rounded a bend where the trail opened onto a long sloped valley, there it was, the profile of a face looking into the morning sun. Ash studied it for a moment, trying to orient the view he saw now with the perspective he remembered from Maddie’s photograph.
He was on the correct side but several miles short.
Continuing at a slower pace, he scanned for recently used trails branching off on the downhill side, hoping he could find one that would lead to the aspen valley in the photograph. He did. After following it for less than a mile, he smelled woodsmoke.
He dismounted and tied the rope on Tricks, not wanting the dog to run off until he could do a thorough reconnaissance of the area. Then leading the horse, he continued down the trail. About a hundred yards farther, he saw a cabin through the trees. He was pulling his field glasses from his sabretache when Tricks started to whine and sniff at the ground several yards away. Then with a yip, he yanked the rope from Ash’s grip and tore off into the trees. Ash looked to see what had drawn the hound’s attention.
Blood. Boot prints. Several horses, one of which was unshod.
Scanning the brush, he saw more blood leading off the trail and into the trees in the direction Tricks had run. Swinging up onto Lurch, he followed.
From ahead came a yip, then a yelping bark that was abruptly cut off. Fearing Tricks had been hurt, Ash yanked out his pistol, dropped from the saddle to the ground, and sent Lurch trotting on ahead. Running at a crouch, he circled through the trees so he could approach from the high side. Through the trees, he saw Tricks standing over the prone figure of a man who had one hand clasped around his muzzle.
Just as Lurch trotted up from the other direction, Ash stepped out into the open. “Let go of my dog, ye bluidy bastard.”
A burst of words in a language Ash dinna know—but in a voice he recognized.
“Thomas?”
He ran forward and saw that Tricks was trying to lick the figure he had trapped on the ground at the edge of a drop-off, not bite him.
“Get him off,” Thomas choked out.
Grinning with relief, Ash dropped the pistol into his jacket pocket and pulled the exuberant hound away. But his amusement died when he saw that the front of Thomas’s war tunic was stained with blood. Most of it had dried, but on his side, halfway down his rib cage, there was a tear in the leather and a seep of bright red blood.
“Bluidy hell, Thomas!”
The Cheyenne looked up at him, his eyes sunken, his mouth drawn into something barely resembling his usual smile. “What took you so long, Scotsman?”
“We’ll be fine,” Lucinda insisted to Declan. “It’s not as if I’ll be wandering the streets. I’ll be in meetings all day. And Maddie draws so much attention with her photography doings, she’s never alone. Besides, she’ll have Chub.”
They were in the aisle of the stable. Lucinda and Maddie had just brought breakfast to Silas, who was busily gobbling it down in the feed room, but instead of finding Declan hitching the buggy and Maddie’s wagon, he was sitting on a nail keg, oiling his rifle.
The sheriff propped the gun against the wall and screwed the cap back on the tin of gun oil. He looked up, his face set in stubborn lines. “And what about
Edwina? I can’t take you two to town and leave her here alone. And I sure can’t bring her to the assembly with me.”
Maddie agreed. Edwina wasn’t one to sit quietly by without wanting to be in the thick of it, especially if words were flying. “This is Friday, is it not? Won’t the final vote be today?”
“Late this afternoon.”
“Then stay with your wife this morning. Lucinda and I will go on with Chub, then he can bring me back at noon to watch over Edwina while you take the buggy into town to cast your vote. By then Lucinda should be through with her meetings and she can ride back with you.”
“That’ll leave you and Ed here unprotected.”
“In a crowded boardinghouse?” Even though the Bible salesman had moved on, the deaf widow and her daughter were still in residence, although they seldom left their room and would be scant protection even if they did. But Mrs. Kemble could certainly handle herself. Hadn’t she had all three men jumping to do her bidding after that “wee tussle” two days ago?
“We both have our pistols,” Maddie reminded him. “And we know how to shoot. We’ll be fine for the three or so hours it will take for you to go vote and come back.”
After a bit more arguing, Declan finally gave in. Chub came, helped him harness the mules, then climbed into the driver’s box beside Maddie and Lucinda, promising he would bring Maddie back in time for Declan to go cast his vote in the assembly that afternoon.
“Meanwhile, Sheriff”—shooting a glance at the open feed room door, Lucinda lowered her voice—“see if you can get that poor boy cleaned up. I’m sure Mrs. Kemble has some strong soap and a scrub brush.”
Declan stepped back, hands raised. “That’s not my problem.”
“It is if he gives us all lice. That’s how typhus gets started. I should know. I’m from New York, remember.”
“This isn’t New York and there’s no typhus around here.”
“Not yet.”
“Hell.”
If the size of the stain on his shirt and the pallor of his usually ruddy skin were any indication, Thomas had lost a lot of blood. Drawing on hard experience with battlefield wounds, Ash did a quick examination.
