by Kaki Warner
“Mostly. Don’t suppose either of you ladies has a spare brush for his teeth? He said the scrub brush tasted funny.”
Lucinda shuddered. Maddie wasn’t sure if it was because Declan had actually tried to fit a scrub brush into the boy’s mouth or because the thought of Silas using one of her brushes was beyond disgusting.
The back door slammed. Mrs. Kemble marched purposefully toward them.
“Trouble,” Declan muttered.
“I need to talk to you people.” She stopped before them, hands planted on her aproned hips. “First you bring a red Indian to my house, then there’s fisticuffs in the yard and that giant dog roaming everywhere, and now a simpleminded man is living in my barn. I don’t know what kind of establishment you think I’m running here, but I’ve about had it with your shenanigans.”
“What shenanigans, ma’am?” Declan asked in his calm way.
“Comings and goings at all hours of the night, that’s what. People disappearing, then others showing up, and now strangers hounding me with their questions. I don’t need this aggravation. I run a respectable place.”
Maddie thought of Cletus Cochran and felt a prickle of unease. “What strangers?”
“I’m sure I don’t know. Some fellow asking about Miss Hathaway here. He didn’t leave his name. I told him you would be gone to meetings in town all day and sent him on his way. But now here you are. And your wife, Sheriff, says the other two—the reverend and that brawling Scotsman—will be back this evening. Do you people have any idea how difficult it is to plan meals when I never even know who all’s going to be here? Now I’ll have to go back to the market and get two more chickens. I’ve a mind to send every one of you people packing.”
“What was he asking?” Lucinda asked.
“I’m sure it’s none of my business. Something about a railroad, I think. And that town you’re from. Heartbreak Creek. Is that simpleminded fellow expecting to eat, too?”
“If you don’t mind, ma’am. I sure would appreciate it.” Declan gave her the smile Maddie had seen him use to charm Edwina. It seemed to have little effect on the landlady.
“You people,” she muttered, stomping back to the house. “No telling who or what you’ll bring around next.”
As soon as she was out of earshot, Maddie turned to Lucinda. “Do you suppose it could be someone from the Wichita Pacific?”
“I don’t know.”
But Maddie had seen that spark of interest in Lucinda’s eyes. “If he’s interested enough to come asking about you, perhaps you should make inquiries of your own.”
“You’re right.” Suddenly her vibrant self again, Lucinda grinned at Declan. “Harness the buggy. I’ve decided to go back to town with you this afternoon. I’ve come too far to give up so easily.”
Ash had been on enough forced marches to know he couldn’t push his mount at a constant fast gait. Trot forty minutes, walk ten, dismount and lead him at a jog ten. Luckily, the animal was strong and better rested than Lurch would have been. He just hoped Tricks could keep up the pace.
The ache in his temple was steady now. Every step the pony took jarred up his spine and exploded inside his head. When the sun hit him full in the face, it was like a knife thrust behind his eyes. So far, the dizziness was mild, but he could feel it spreading up through his head like eddies in a swirling pool.
He figured Cochran had an hour and a half head start. With luck he might be able to cut that to less than one. Then he would do what he should have done back at the clearing four days ago, and kill the bluidy bastard.
“Is she still angry?” Edwina asked when Maddie slipped into her room with a bowl of blackberries and two rolls left over from lunch.
“She’s mellowed somewhat, although it’s probably a good thing we’re leaving soon. I think our dear landlady is running out of patience.” Maddie set the bowl on the small table beside Edwina’s bed, then munching on one of the rolls, went to look out the window.
The afternoon was dwindling away, and still no sign of Ash or Thomas or the reverend. Declan and Lucinda had gone to town an hour ago, and Mrs. Kemble had left for the market. The widow and her daughter had gone to afternoon mass at the Catholic church several blocks away. With just the two of them in the house, it was so quiet Maddie could hear the tick of the regulator clock in the hallway and the distant thump of the ax as Silas split the cordwood piled beside the stable. It was a task she had put him to earlier, as a way to pay Mrs. Kemble for his supper.
Seeing no riders coming down the road in front of the boardinghouse, she sighed and sank into the chair beside the bed.
“Stop worrying.” Edwina popped a blackberry in her mouth. “Ash and Thomas are fully capable of taking care of themselves.”
She looked the essence of femininity—stretched out on the coverlet, stockinged feet crossed, one arm tucked lazily behind her riotous light brown curls, her body ripe with life. Maddie framed it in her mind, wishing there was enough light for a photograph.
“You love him, don’t you?” Edwina observed.
“I do. I think I always have.”
Edwina ate two more berries, then sighed. “Which means you’ll go back to Scotland with him.”
“Eventually.”
Maddie watched tears rise in her friend’s expressive blue eyes.
“I am sick to death of losing people I love,” Edwina said in a quavering voice. “I hate the thought of losing you, too. But I can see he makes you happy.”
Fighting her own tears, Maddie looked toward the window. The breeze had picked up, as it did in late afternoon, and tiny swirls of dust danced in the long shafts of light shining through the trees. The noise of the ax had stopped and Maddie wondered if Mrs. Kemble or the widow and her daughter had returned. But she heard no voices downstairs, and no footsteps in the hall. Forcing a smile, she turned back to Edwina. “Perhaps you could come for a visit. The family lives in a castle, you know.”
“A castle!” Edwina gave that contagious laugh that always brought a smile to anyone hearing it. “Imagine that. Will you host grand balls and wear a coronet and have servants at your beck and call?”
Maddie laughed with her, trying to picture Ash wearing evening clothes. Then wearing a kilt that showed his ticklish knees. Then stretched across her bed, wearing nothing. A braw lad indeed.
Edwina’s laugh faded to a wistful smile. “We had parties. Just before the war started, we had one every night.” Waving a hand in pantomime to a waltz, she added dreamily, “All the handsome young men in their smart gray uniforms, and the pretty girls in their frocks and gowns, dancing the night away as if tomorrow would never come.” She let her hand drop back to her lap and sighed again. “How foolish we were.”
A muffled step in the hall drew Maddie’s attention. A timid knock on the door, then Silas’s voice. “Ma’am? You in there?”
Maddie exchanged a look of curiosity with Edwina, then rose and went to the door. She opened it to find Silas hunched in the hall, blood dripping from a cut on his brow, one eye swollen shut. Before Maddie could ask what had happened, he lurched forward into the room, almost plowing into Maddie.
A man appeared at his shoulder—a man with mismatched eyes and a knife in his hand.
“Hello, picture lady. Remember me?”
By the time Ash reached the main road into Denver, the pony was showing the strain, Tricks was starting to lag, and pain was a thunderous roar in his head.
The ache in the left side of his head had expanded to a pounding throb that pulsed with every heartbeat. Lights flashed behind his eyes and his vision had narrowed to a haloed tunnel. It was an effort to stay in the saddle.
He pushed doggedly on. Only a few more miles. He would tie himself to the bluidy horse if he had to. He wouldn’t fail her this time.
To focus away from the pain, he mentally listed all the reasons everything would be fine.
Declan was there. Maddie wasn’t even at the boardinghouse but was still in town. Chub was with her. She had her we
e pistol. People were all around. Cochran wouldn’t make his move in the idle of a crowd in broad daylight.
Would he?
Time inched by to the drum of the pony’s hoofbeats. People stared as he rode by, gaping at Tricks who struggled valiantly to stay up.
Ash cupped a hand over his left eye, but that dinna help with the dizziness. Leaning forward, he gripped the pony’s mane in both hands and struggled to stay balanced.
Only a few more miles…
As Maddie stared down at the knife pointed at her chest, a great stillness came over her. As if she were focusing the lens on her camera, she centered her mind on one single thought—her sole purpose at this moment, and the only thing that mattered.
Stay alive.
Only then could she keep Edwina alive.
Help would come.
She shot a warning glance at Edwina, silently entreating her to remain calm and not do anything to excite the situation. But Ed was frozen in shock, perched upright on the bed, both hands clutched over her distended belly as if to protect the baby within.
Roughly shoving Maddie aside with his free hand, Cletus Cochran stepped in and shut the door. She watched him, fighting to keep her fear from showing even as her mind tried to reason why he was even here. Hadn’t he gone after Thomas and the reverend?
Or had Silas lied about that?
“Which room is Zucker’s?” Cochran demanded.
Zucker’s? Why would he want the reverend? What could the reverend have that Cochran—the claim papers! Suddenly it made sense. Cochran hadn’t found the claim papers at the cabin, so he had come here.
But where were Thomas and the reverend? And Ash? What had he done to them?
Panic jangled along her nerves. It took all of her will to keep it in check. “I thought you said you were Zucker.”
He backhanded her in the face.
Pain exploded. Blinded, she staggered back, blood filling her nose and mouth. Beyond the pain and the buzzing in her ears, she heard Edwina’s shrill voice and Silas crying. Lifting a shaking hand to her face, she felt the hot gush of blood through her fingers.
He grabbed her hair and jerked her head back. More blood dripped down her throat, making her gag. Mismatched eyes swam before hers as the knife pricked her side. “Which. Room. Is Zuckers?”
“At the other end of the hall,” Edwina cried before Maddie could clear her throat enough to speak. “On the left.”
He let go of her hair. The eyes went away.
Maddie doubled over and coughed, spattering blood on her skirts. Had he broken her nose?
“You done there, Si?”
Through the tangle of her hair, Maddie watched Silas finish tying a long pink ribbon around Edwina’s hands, then bend to wrap a blue one around her ankles.
He was crying. Bright drips of red fell from his brow onto the coverlet. “Y-yes, Clete. All done.”
“Here.” Cletus held out the knife.
Silas stared at it.
“Take it, moron!”
When Silas gingerly took it, Maddie almost screamed at him to use it. Stab him before he killed them all. But she knew Silas wouldn’t—couldn’t—go against his brother.
Cochran pulled the gun from his holster. “You watch that one while we’re gone, Si. If she does anything, stick her in the throat. You hear me, moron?”
“Y-yes, Clete.”
Grabbing Maddie’s left arm, Cochran wrenched it behind her and up between her shoulder blades with such force she cried out and rose on her tiptoes. “Move!” he barked and shoved her toward the door.
“If that one screams or gets away,” he called back over his shoulder, “I’ll come for you, Si. And you know what I’ll do. I’ll hurt you bad. Remember that.”
Silas’s sobs echoed through Maddie’s befuddled mind. Pain assaulted her—from her nose, her arm, the socket of her shoulder—but it helped bring her thoughts back in line and rid her body of the terrible numbness that threatened to drag her down.
Cletus pushed her out the door, closed it, then using the arm behind her back, steered her down the hall.
Maddie felt the palm pistol in her skirt pocket bounce against her leg with every step. She knew if they were to survive this, she had to get him away from the house. Away from Edwina. Out into the open where she could use it, where someone would see.
“If you’re looking for the claim papers,” she gasped, trying to arch away from his agonizing grip on her arm, “they’re not in his room.”
He stopped. “Where are they?”
She coughed and wiped her right sleeve at the blood still dripping from her nose. “In my wagon.”
“You better not be lying.” Another vicious twist almost sent Maddie to her knees before he jerked her upright again. Pulling her so close she could smell the stink of his breath, he whispered in her ear, “If you try anything, anything at all, I’ll come back up here and gut her. I’ll cut that kid out of her and leave them both to die. Understand?”
“I w-won’t. I promise.”
He shoved her ahead of him toward the stairs.
When they stepped out the back door, the sun hit them full in the face. Cochran stopped. Using her as a shield—one hand pinning her arm, the other holding the muzzle of the gun against her side—he looked around.
The stable faced them. Both the front and back doors were open, and Maddie could see all the way through to her wagon parked in back. Nothing moved in the aisleway. No buggy stood by her wagon. Only the mules dozed in the paddock.
Maddie slid a hand into her pocket. But before she could grab the pistol, he pushed her so hard she almost fell off the stoop.
“Walk!”
They were out in the open and still forty feet from the stable doors when a figure stepped from a stall into the aisleway. Tall, bareheaded, holding a rifle to his shoulder. His face was in shadow, his lanky form silhouetted in the open rear doors.
But Maddie would have known that long body and those sturdy legs and that military stance anywhere.
Cochran stopped, cursed softly under his breath.
“Let her go and ride away,” Ash called.
“I’ll shoot her.” Cocking the pistol, Cochran jabbed the barrel hard into her ribs. “I swear I will.”
Ash took a step, then stopped, rifle still at his shoulder. He seemed to falter but slid his other foot forward to steady his balance.
A small, inconsequential movement.
But Maddie saw.
She searched his shadowed face, but it was partially hidden by the stock of the rifle. Yet she knew.
“Fifty feet. Your pistol against my rifle. Think about it, Cochran.”
“You shoot me, you kill her.”
“Last chance, you bluidy bastard.”
Maddie slid a shaking hand into her pocket. This time she found the small pepperbox pistol.
Then Cochran’s arm shot past her right shoulder, his pistol pointed at Ash. He fired at the same time a loud boom came from the stable.
Noise deafened her. Cochran stumbled back, dragging Maddie with him. Dimly she heard him screaming as he lifted his gun hand to the right side of his head.
In the barn, Ash sagged against the stall.
Gasping with terror, Maddie struggled one-handed to thumb back the hammer on the pistol.
The man behind her lowered his hand from his head. It was covered in blood. “You son of a bitch! You shot off my ear!”
In the stable, Ash cursed and worked frantically to reload.
Maddie saw Cochran’s gun come up again. She butted it away with her shoulder, then twisted, jammed the pistol into his stomach, and squeezed the trigger.
A muffled pop. Cochran jerked. Wrenching her arm free, Maddie fell forward onto her knees just as something huge and snarling leaped past.
Growls, screams, Ash shouting.
Then suddenly he was there, dragging Tricks off by the scruff of his neck and thrusting a long blade into what was left of Cletus Cochran’s throat.
> “Oh God, oh God,” Maddie wept, trying to crawl away from the carnage. Blood was everywhere—she could smell it, feel it on her hands, taste the coppery saltiness of it on the back of her tongue.
“Lass.”
She screamed when hands lifted her from the ground. Then she saw it was Ash and threw herself against him.
“Are you hurt, Maddie? Let me see if you’re hurt.”
But she couldn’t let him go, and finally he had to reach up and pull her arms from around his neck.
“Let me look at you, lass.” Trapping her face in his sticky hands, he squinted down at her. “Sweet Mary. There’s so much blood. Where are you hurt? Did he cut you?”
“Oh, Ash—the gun w-went off and I saw you f-fall, and—”
“He dinna hit me. I just lost my balance. Did he cut you?”
“N-no. A bloody nose, that’s all. Is he…?” She started to look over at Cochran, but he pulled her face back around.
“Aye. He’s dead.”
“T-tricks?”
“He’s fine.”
A door slammed. Edwina and Silas stood on the stoop, gaping in horror from Ash and Maddie to Cochran’s body, then to the wolfhound coming to greet them, his muzzle and chest wet with blood.
The buggy rolled into the yard. Footsteps came from the opposite direction, then a shrill voice cried, “Goodness gracious sakes alive! What have you people done now?”
Twenty-one
Blinded by pain and shaking with relief, Ash barely stayed on his feet as shouts exploded around him—Maddie arguing with Mrs. Kemble. Brodie and his wife and Miss Hathaway running up to join in. Silas crying and running to hide in the barn with Tricks.
He dinna care.
He’d made it in time. Maddie was safe. He hadna let her down.
Pressing a hand to his temple, he stumbled away from the chaos toward the stable, desperate to wash off the blood and find a quiet, dark place to lie down before he fell down or heaved up what jerky was left in his stomach.
Maddie appeared beside him as he bent over the trough, scrubbing his hands in the murky water. After rinsing her own face and hands as best she could, she took his arm and gently led him into the house and up the stairs to their room.
