“I can’t see tracks of any sort,” one of their companions finally said.
“Yes,” Matthews replied, the frustration ringing clear. “Whoever Miss Dumas went with, they didn’t want anyone to know about it. Someone has come and brushed out all the tracks.”
“So follow the brush marks,” Jeffery snapped. He pushed back his normally well-placed brown hair and waited for Matthews to contra- dict his suggestion. Instead, all three men looked at him like he’d lost his senses.
“Whoever brushed out the tracks knew what he was doing. It isn’t a matter of following the brush marks. If you’ll look for yourself, you’ll see there are no brush marks.”
“There has to be something there!” Jeffery hated looking like a fool, but he hated even more that Matthews was right.
Matthews looked him square in the eye for just a heartbeat before shaking his head and moving along the river. Anger welled up in Jeffery. Matthews was probably the reason Simone had gone off by herself. He must have exposed his plan to bring her in and Simone probably got wind of it and …
No, that didn’t make sense, Jeffery had to admit. Simone wasn’t stupid. She went to the church to talk to the minister. She planned to talk to the police—to turn herself in. But she never made it.
“Here!” Matthews called out from some five or six yards away. “He missed a spot.”
“How can you be sure it’s our man?” one of their companions asked.
“It isn’t. The footprints are very small and definitely belong to a woman or young girl.”
“Could be someone else came this way,” the other man commented.
“I suppose so, but this is all we have to work with at this point,” Matthew answered and continued moving farther upriver.
Jeffery followed in silent defeat. There seemed very little he could do. God, I’m so worthless here, he prayed. I know nothing about any of this. He bent down, trying hard to see something that just wasn’t there. Please help us to find a clue. Help us to find Simone. I don’t know where she is, he cried in silent misery, but you do. You see her even now. You know her every move. Oh, God, keep her safe. Don’t let her come to further harm. Then it dawned on Jeffery that he’d just done the very best thing he could for Simone. He had prayed. He was helpless and worthless in regards to knowing the lay of the land and how to find the right path. But God knew every detail. God would supply his every need.
“Here,” Matthews called. He stood a good ten yards away and was eyeing something in his hand like it was gold.
“What is it?” Jeffery asked, rushing to make it to Matthews’ side first.
“Do you know what Miss Dumas was wearing?” he asked, closing his hand over whatever he’d found. “Is she wearing one of those uniforms?” Jeffery tried to remember what Una had said. He thought back to his search through her room. “No,” he said, shaking his head. “Her uniforms were all in place. Una said she was wearing a skirt and blouse. I think the blouse was a plain white one. The skirt was blue.”
Matthews smiled and opened his hand. There in the middle of his palm was a small piece of blue material. “Found it caught on a piece of root over there. They definitely came this way. My guess is that they’ll keep to the river until they’re away from town.” He turned to one of the other men. “Go get the others and tell them what we’ve found.” The man nodded and took off in the direction of town. “Oh, and now would probably be a good time to bring those horses,” he called after the man.
“Will do!” came the reply.
“Now what?” Jeffery questioned. He hated having to ask Matthews for information, but his mind wouldn’t accept not knowing.
“We’ll keep pushing in this direction. Sooner or later they’ll get tired of covering their tracks. They’ll figure no one will be able to find them, and they’ll get lazy.”
“Don’t say it like Simone is in on it. She isn’t!” Jeffery protested.
Matthews shrugged. “I don’t see any signs of a fight, and your eyewitness didn’t mention anything about a struggle. I’d say Miss Dumas went very willingly with her companion.”
“That’s a lie!” Jeffery exclaimed, moving closer to Matthews. The man only had a couple inches on him in height but was probably an additional thirty pounds in muscle. “Simone was terrified of her father, and if she went willingly, then it was because she feared for her life.”
“We don’t know for sure that it was her father,” Matthews reminded him.
“Who else would it be? No one else knows her.”
“It could have been a complete stranger with a good time on his mind,” the one remaining townsman offered.
Jeffery glared hard at the man, but Matthew only nodded. “Could be.”
“No. I feel certain that somehow Louis Dumas has a hand in this,” Jeffery replied. “I may not be much good at tracking or figuring out things like this, but I’m certain in my gut that Simone’s father has come back to haunt her.”
“I’m not saying it isn’t a possibility,” Matthews replied. “I’m just stating facts here. We don’t know who Miss Dumas is with. We only know that someone was seen walking with her along the river.”
By this time, the others were coming to join them. “So what did you find?” Mac called out.
Matthews went forward with the material. “This is a piece of material that matches the description of the skirt Miss Dumas was wearing. My guess is that they headed west along the river and eventually they’ll break away and head out for other parts. What’s the nearest towns?”
“River goes north to Marion. Tracks go south to Newton,” Mac replied. “Cottonwood Falls is to the northeast. It wouldn’t be too hard to get to. ’Course, if your gal is headed this way, she probably won’t backtrack around the town to head that way.”
Zack Matthews seemed to take a long time considering this information before posing another question. “What’s the lay of farms along the way to Newton?”
“They’re scattered. Most of the farms around here were set up as homesteads.”
Matthews nodded. “Then this could take some time.”
“Well, I can spare the horses but not the time,” the officer answered honestly. He shifted in his saddle and gave Jeffery a sympathetic nod. “Wish I could do more, but one wayward female with or without her questionable companion doesn’t rate against a payroll shipment. We need to get back to Florence in order to take care of our own business.”
“I understand,” Matthews replied. “I’m obliged for the loan of the horses. I’ll get them back to you as soon as I can.”
“Wait!” Jeffery called out as the officer reined his horse around. “You can’t mean to just leave her out there.”
“I’d like to help, but you’re in good hands.” He nodded in the direction of Zack. “Matthews seems fully capable of finding the way, and surely the two of you can handle the job.”
“We can handle it,” Matthews replied, mounting the offered horse. “You coming, O’Donnell?”
Jeffery looked first to Mac and his men and then to Zack. “I suppose I have no choice.”
“You can just go back to town and let me do what I came to do,” Matthews replied, giving Jeffery a fixed look. After this brief exchange, Matthews turned his horse and headed west.
“Not a chance of that,” Jeffery called after him and hurried to his own mount.
Zack wasn’t at all pleased to have O’Donnell tagging along. The man was hopeless when it came to tracking and even worse at dealing with the rougher side of life. It seemed clear to Zack that O’Donnell was used to sitting behind a desk and riding in carriages rather than aback a horse on an open prairie. But it wasn’t to be helped. The urgency of the matter pressed Zack forward without much time left over to argue with O’Donnell.
As Zack had predicted, once the cover of trees thinned out, there was clear evidence of tracks. “They’ve headed due west,” Zack told Jeffery as he studied the dirt. Remounting, he pointed. “I’m heading for that hill. It’s not much, but i
t might show us something.”
Jeffery grunted and wiped his brow. The sun crept ever higher in the sky, bringing with it the August heat. Zack wondered how long O’Donnell could tolerate staying in the saddle. If the heat didn’t do him in, no doubt the exercise would.
They rode silently until they’d topped the hill, and it was only after Zack brought his horse to a stop that Jeffery O’Donnell spoke.
“You don’t honestly expect them to be anywhere in view, do you? I mean, they’ve got a good day on us. They could have been picked up by some sympathetic passerby and be almost anywhere by now. Dumas could have even had horses stashed and waiting.”
“That’s all possible,” Zack replied, scanning the horizon. In the distance he could make out the white block form of a farmhouse. “They could have even made their way to that house down there.”
“What house?”
Zack watched as O’Donnell nearly unseated himself trying to crane around to see the house. “Do you think they went there? Do you see tracks?”
“No tracks,” Zack replied. “Which makes me think that at this point they were still on foot.”
“If they even came this way,” Jeffery muttered.
Zack didn’t reply. Instead, he urged the horse forward in the direction of the farmstead. He wasn’t at all sure they were heading in the right direction, but he sure didn’t need to hear it from O’Donnell’s mouth. His patience with the man was beginning to wear thin. It was obvious that the man felt he had a vested interest in the matter.
They were nearly to the bottom of the hill when Zack finally asked the question that had been nagging him since he’d first met up with O’Donnell in Topeka.
“You have some special connection to Miss Dumas?”
“You might say that,” Jeffery replied.
“Well, I figured as much. No man chases after a woman without a reason.”
“Like the desire to see her hanged for a murder she didn’t commit?” O’Donnell countered.
“I don’t want to see her hang if she isn’t guilty,” Zack replied. “And I never said I thought she was the one who did the murder.”
“But you’ve chased her all the way from Wyoming.”
“Yes, but that’s because she’s wanted for questioning. Just because I think she stands a good chance of being innocent doesn’t mean I can let her run off without accounting for the fact that she did steal Davis’s horse and gear.”
“But she was desperate. She feared for her life and her innocence,” O’Donnell argued.
“I’m well aware of what you’ve told me, but, frankly, I’d like to hear it from Miss Dumas.”
Zack felt marginal relief when O’Donnell fell silent. They rode in unison, no sound but the harsh prairie wind blowing and the horses’ hooves plodding a path across the open range. Zack had a hunch, and if this hunch rewarded him as others had, he felt certain they’d learn news of Simone and her companion when they stopped at the farmhouse. He was beginning to feel rather excited about the whole thing when O’Donnell started up again.
“What if the people here haven’t any news for you? What then?”
Zack shrugged. He honestly wasn’t sure what he would do. “I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”
“Can I ask you something else?” Jeffery questioned, and for once his tone wasn’t in the same condescending manner to which Zack had grown accustomed.
“What?”
“It seems to me that you are perfectly willing to believe in Simone’s innocence. You tell me that you have to pursue her for questioning, and that she might have answers you need.”
“That’s right.”
“But what happens when she tells you what you want to hear? Will you have to take her back with you to Wyoming, even if she tells you the truth?”
“The truth won’t be for me to decide,” Zack told him, reining back the horse. He stopped and looked Jeffery in the eye. “She’ll have to stand trial and let a jury decide. You do understand that, don’t you?”
“But I thought—”
“You thought just because I admitted that Davis was bludgeoned to death in a manner that would suggest someone with a whole lot more muscle than the petite Miss Dumas, that I would just let her go once she told her story?”
“But if she’s innocent, you can’t expect her to just give up her new life and go back to Wyoming.”
“I won’t go back home without someone to stand trial for Davis’s murder.”
Jeffery looked away and his shoulders sagged. “I don’t want to lose her.” His voice was barely audible.
“Neither do I,” Zack said frankly, realizing they both wanted Simone Dumas for entirely different reasons. O’Donnell’s—for their romantic future together. His—to prove something to his father.
THIRT Y-TWO
LOUIS GLANCED OVER at his daughter. She leaned forward, awkwardly positioned atop the horse he’d managed to steal. Her head bobbed up and down with the steady plodding of the horse, and her eyes were closed. She wouldn’t last much longer. He’d refused her food and water over the past forty-eight hours, all in hopes of keeping her too weak to fight him. Now, however, she was about to fall off her mount. They’d have to stop in order for her to rest. He glanced around, seeing in the dusky twilight that they were as far removed from civilization as they could get. It gave him a small amount of comfort.
“We’ll make camp here,” Louis told her. He slid off his mount and walked the beast to a nearby sapling. Tying the reins securely, Louis unfastened the reins to Simone’s mount from where he’d tied them to the horn of his own saddle. He pulled the horse up even with his own, then after tying him off, Louis reached up and pulled Simone down.
“Go over there and don’t even think of trying to sneak off,” he told her, knowing Simone was physically incapable of escaping.
Simone seemed to barely even hear him. She stumbled several paces in the direction her father had pointed, then collapsed onto the hard ground. Louis looked at her for a moment, then shrugged and went back to the business of unsaddling the horses. Better that she sleep, he decided. If she was unconscious, she wouldn’t be plotting against him.
He unfastened a bundle he’d secured to the back of his mount, then pulled off the saddle and tethered the horse in such a way that he could feed off the nearby grass. After doing the same for Simone’s horse, he built a fire and sat down to satisfy his own needs.
First came a bottle of whiskey. He took a long drink, then congratulated himself for being cunning enough to have found the deserted farmhouse where he stole not only his drink but horses and other supplies, as well. Apparently the family had gone into town, leaving the place completely vulnerable to his needs. There had been a protective farm dog, but Louis’s knife had taken care of that matter. It immediately appeared that this farm specialized in breeding horseflesh. It was perfect for their predicament. Six or seven horses were in a nearby corral, and Louis had only to pick out the best looking of the bunch.
Simone had been sick over his treatment of the family pet, so while he searched the house for things they could use, he’d left Simone tied to the porch not ten feet from where the dog lay dying. He had heard her crying the entire time he ransacked the house.
He stared at her unconscious form with indifference. She had no idea what lay ahead for her. No doubt she’d complain about her unfair lot. Probably cry about everything day and night. Whining female! Just like her mother. Always thinking tears could turn a man’s heart. Louis laughed and took another swig from the bottle.
“Well, you won’t be turning a man’s heart with tears when I get through with you,” he said, continuing to stare at Simone’s crumpled form. “They’ll line up to pay for what you’ve got to offer, and it won’t be tears. You’ll do what you’re told, and you’ll make me a rich man.”
Louis paused long enough to throw some wood on the fire and leaned back once again to cherish the bottle of whiskey. He muttered a curse and took a drink. “Stupid sta
te. Keeping a man from a good drink ought to be against the law, not part of it.” He neither knew nor cared why this Florence farm family had managed to secure a bottle for their cabinet—he only thanked the fates for his finding it. He’d taken it, along with a loaf of bread, half a wheel of cheese, and three thick slices of ham that were still sitting on the back of the stove. And now, smirking over his victorious journey to find Simone, Louis helped himself to some of the meat and dreamed of his future.
“You thought you could outrun me,” he told the sleeping Simone. “Thought you could run and leave me like your mother. Well, you were a fool.”
Louis ate in silence, washing down the dried-out ham with whiskey. They were still several days from the mining camps of Colorado. If the weather held and Simone regained her strength, they could probably be to Denver within a week. Denver would allow Louis a few chances at the poker tables and maybe even a high roller who was willing to pay for Simone’s innocence. The idea was thought provoking. Denver was full of moneyed men, and the idea of making a quick buck was enough to warm Louis’s blood. That and the whiskey.
Several hours later, the bottle was empty and Louis was drunk. He didn’t feel overwhelmingly drunk—after all, he’d spent most of his years imbibing in one form of liquor or another. But it was as if the long wait from Chicago to this prairie field had somehow cleansed his system and allowed the liquor to take a stronger hold. He felt warm and wonderfully relaxed. He could have easily danced a jig or joined in a tavern drinking song, he felt so good.
Simone stirred, and the action caused Louis to take note of her once again.
“Stupid girl. You’re slowing me down.”
The sound of his voice apparently brought her awake. Sitting up very slowly, Simone stared at him for a moment before taking in the campfire and the scene around them. She looked heavenward at the full moon before rasping out her question.
“Where are we?”
“Can’t say,” Louis replied. “I ain’t never been to this part of the country. It’s my guess that we’ll make Denver inside of a week. And then you are going to make me a rich man.”
A Shelter of Hope Page 27
