Innocent Bystander

by C. A. Asbrey

  Innocent Bystander

  The Innocents Mystery Series: Book Three

  C.A. Asbrey

  Innocent Bystander

  Copyright© 2018 C.A. Asbrey

  Cover Design C.A. Asbrey & Livia Reasoner

  Prairie Rose Publications

  www.prairierosepublications.com

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Chapter 1

  Wyoming 1870

  It was the familiar where he hadn’t expected to see it which bothered Nat Quinn. There was something about the female figure headed for the embankment which lit up his heart with a jolt. Every nerve jangled until the flutter in his chest settled into a buzz which heightened his senses. Was it Abigail? Why was she here? Was it a trap? The syncopation of her steps and the way the woman carried her head was completely familiar, but there was also something different and unexpected in the execution which gave him pause. He frowned, peering at the scene under gathered brows. He was smack bang in the middle of a robbery, but that was no longer important. He scanned the scene from above a masking bandana, hackles rising with concern as he watched the events unfolding before him. Everything was commonplace for the scene of one of his crimes, but something was also different, and he couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was. That made him cagey.

  “Over here! I’ll keep ya safe.” A youth reached out a hand to help her climb the bank. “Give me your hand, Miss MacKay. I’ll help you up.”

  Nat’s dark eyes were drawn over to the source of the yell and he suddenly lost all interest in breaking into the safe. The call came from a young man, as plump as an overfilled sausage. He waved to the young woman who had been herded from the train by The Innocents. She scampered across the grass toward her beefy guardian, clutching at her skirts and flashing the white frill of her petticoats as she dashed up the grassy bank. Nat’s breath stilled at the mention of that name. Mac-eye, the boy had said—pronouncing it the Scottish way. The way he’d never heard anyone say it way until he’d met Abigail MacKay. Nat fully turned and watched as Melvin and a few more gang members helped more passengers from the carriage, following the woman’s every move.

  It was hard to judge her height from this distance but her hair was amazing. It wasn’t red. It wasn’t Titian. It was the color of pure spun gold and he had never seen anything like it before. Surely, that couldn’t be real? His mind went straight to one of Abigail’s disguises. That had to be a wig.

  Nat gestured to the nearest member of the gang. “Chuck. Get Jake for me, will ya?”

  “What’s wrong?” the outlaw asked, picking up on his boss’s furrowed brow. Jake was the gunman and his presence was never requested on a job for the pleasure of his company.

  Nat shrugged. “Maybe something. Maybe nothing, but I gotta check. Tell Jake I need him.”

  Nat strode over to the passengers gathering on the ridge next to the railway tracks, his gaze burning into the back of the woman who greeted the young man who had called her name.

  “Miss MacKay?” said Nat.

  The young woman turned and stared at him with green eyes as amazing as her hair, the pupils fixed to pinpoints of black as her fear overtook her at being singled out for questioning by Nat Quinn. He watched her chest heave quickly as anxiety gripped her, realizing that he had never seen this in the woman he had thought she might be, except in extremis. This wasn’t Abigail MacKay, or was it? They looked alike other than the spectacular coloring. Was it another one of her damned disguises?

  “Leave her alone.” The rotund, young man stepped forward, the true bravery of his actions coming over in the trepidation trembling in the background of his words.

  Quinn nodded reassuringly as he smiled at him, the corners of his eyes crinkling under his mask. It took genuine courage to make a stand in the face of fear and he wasn’t going to rob the lad of his moment. That wasn’t why Nat was here, and a farm boy showing bravado in front of a pretty girl was the least of his worries.

  “I’m not gonna hurt her. I think we’ve met before, that’s all.” Nat’s tone remained measured and unthreatening as he propped his hands on his hips. “I just want to speak to her.”

  The woman spoke at last, her accent was American and not the rounded Scottish tones of the woman he had thought she might be—but that meant nothing. Abigail MacKay was as excellent at accents as she was with disguises.

  “We’ve never met before. I don’t mix with the likes of you.”

  Quinn drank in every facet of her face. The set of the cat-like eyes was familiar, but they weren’t the soft chocolate he expected. Could eye color be changed? He didn’t know. The mouth was plush and enticing like Abigail’s, and she had the same high cheek bones, but the jaw was slightly different. It was squarer, where Abigail’s face was more heart-shaped. More importantly, this woman was at least three inches shorter than Abigail and no disguise could be that good unless she was standing in a hole.

  But why was he drawn to so many similarities in a woman with such completely different coloring? Those rich, viridian eyes certainly couldn’t be hiding the velvet midnight of Abigail’s dark eyes. They were windows to a completely different soul.

  “Miss? Your name is MacKay?” he demanded, pronouncing it the Scottish way Abigail did—‘mac-eye’. The spelling didn’t match her pronunciation of her name, but having seen her write in Gaelic he knew there was little phonetic about the Scottish language.

  Jake Conroy walked up to them, his booted feet crunching in the gritty earth. Quinn heard him draw in a breath at the fairytale princess before them with luminous, golden curls tumbling around her perfect face. This woman was an outstanding ethereal beauty. How much of a threat she posed was yet to be established.

  “Yes,” she replied in a wavering voice. “Madeleine. My name is Madeleine MacKay.”

  Nat whispered to Jake. “Her name’s MacKay. She pronounces it the same and everything.” He turned back to the girl. “Where do you live?”

  Her eyes widened, even though they were so enormous it didn’t seem possible for them to get any larger. “Brooklyn.”

  Her breath now came in great gulps of terror as her amazing eyes flicked from Nat Quinn to Jake Conroy, unsure why she should be singled out like this by masked outlaws. Her irises had deep, dark flecks in them adding to their verdant richness and stood out like emeralds against her smooth, pale porcelain skin.

  “Brooklyn, near New York?” asked Nat.

  “Yes.”

  “Why are you all the way out West?” asked Jake. “You’re a long way from home.”

  Tears welled in her eyes. She gulped and sniffed as tried to answer before she dissolved into a useless puddle of emotions. “What do you want? I haven’t done anything to you. Why are you questioning me like this?” She stamped a foot so tiny it was almost amusing in its impotence. “Leave me alone.”

  Jake took in the concern from other passengers. They couldn’t afford to be seen browbeating anyone, especially a terrified young woman. Men were likely to try to defend her and they didn’t need that sort of hassle while they were robbing a train. He tipped the brim of his hat and gave her his most charming twinkle as his voice warmed. “I’m sorry, ma’am but there was somethin’ real familiar about you. We thought you were someone we know called Abigail. Just from a distance, you understand. I now know we were wrong. Sorry to bother you.”

  “Abigail?” The woman positively snorted as the tears dried far too
instantaneously to be real. “That’s my sister’s name. How could you know her? It must be a mistake.”

  Quinn and Conroy shared a conversation in a glance.

  “Dark, curly hair. Dark eyes? Maybe three, four inches taller than you?” asked Nat.

  “Yes.” Her brows met in curiosity. “But how could she possibly know you?”

  Quinn was still unsure. They shared physical similarities but their spirit and demeanor could not be more different. “Scottish? Came to the States from Glasgow after coming from some island or other?”

  “Yes. She wouldn’t mix with you, would she?” the woman demanded, dabbing at her eyes with a delicate handkerchief. “My goodness, she’s letting the family down once more if she is.”

  “She was on a train we robbed, too,” replied Quinn as it began to sink in that this sprite was Abigail’s sister. “Gave Jake a real hard time. She’s a handful.”

  Madeleine’s brow crinkled as her fear began to subside.

  “That sounds like her. She’s always telling people off. Especially me. I’m surprised you remember her, though. She seems instantly forgettable to me.”

  “Nope, she’s real memorable.” Jake grinned.

  Madeleine stuck out her chin. “Seriously? She’s the most boring person I know. She dresses in drab clothes like she’s sixty, and she’s as plain as a stiff old loaf. She works as a governess. A governess. We don’t have to work in our family. She’s nearly a servant. Why would she want to do that? She says it keeps her busy. Pah!”

  Nat grinned, realizing that they had stumbled onto Abi’s dirty little secret.

  “How come she speaks in a Scottish accent and you don’t?” asked Quinn.

  “I was only a child when I came to the States.” Madeleine thrust her pert nose in the air. She’s much older than me.”

  Nat nodded. “I’m sorry to have bothered you. It was the name being called that attracted my attention, ma’am, and then you looked familiar from a distance. There aren’t many who will stand up to Jake. She made us all laugh—at Jake’s expense, of course.”

  “Name?”

  “Yeah.” Nat nodded. “MacKay. You say it the same way and everything.”

  The alabaster forehead crinkled in confusion. “But her name’s not MacKay. It’s Stewart. MacKay was her maiden name. Anyway, what would she want to see you again for? I don’t even know why you’d remember her amongst everyone you’ve ever robbed.”

  Nat froze at this information, lowering his head to mask his eyes hardening beneath the brim of his hat. Married? Why had she never told him? She’d never said a word about a husband.

  Jake stepped in to cover their astonishment at the news. “She’s feisty and made us laugh, that’s all. Give her our regards and we’re sorry to have bothered you, ma’am. We thought you were her from a distance. You have the same walk. Good day to you.”

  They turned, Nat gritting his teeth in anger. “Not one word about a husband, Jake. Not a single thing about him in all the time I’ve known her.”

  “Yeah, well I guess Abi wasn’t aimin’ at marriage, so it didn’t come up.”

  “Damn it. Why wouldn’t she tell me something that important? I thought we had something special.”

  “Maybe not as special as you thought, huh?”

  They walked back to the train, Nat’s shoulders tense as he muttered under his breath to his uncle. “She came from that carriage. Find her bag. There’ll be addresses, diaries, letters. Anythin’ she’s got. Bring them to me. I’ll get the safe open.”

  ♦◊♦

  Ghost Canyon sat at the edge of a vast scrubby plain. The expanse gave way to foothills and rocky crags which concealed valleys and canyons cut out by ancient seas and the long gone glaciers. It took more than a day to cross the desiccated tract of land from the south and the lack of cover meant it was impossible to head for the hideout without being seen from a long way off. This allowed the criminals to head off at the first sight of any significant force headed their way. A maze of tiny paths and gullies cut through the rocky terrain on the other side and was a trap for the unwary. Strangers were quickly lost in a series of dead ends and ravines which would suddenly drop into treacherous gorges. Any interloper would have to know the way through to survive, and given that it was impossible to ride two abreast in these narrow paths, and that outlaws could fire down on anyone riding through them uninvited, it made the perfect place for a gang like The Innocents to meet and relax between jobs.

  All they had to do was ensure a regular guard was posted, and for the tales of the cursed burial ground, which gave Ghost Canyon its name, to be regularly circulated until people tended to give the place a wide berth. The stream at the entrance to the rugged, scabrous land didn’t hurt, either. An optical illusion gave the impression of the water running uphill and did more than enough to unnerve the superstitious and fearful when combined with tales of natives ready to do all manner of dreadful things to protect their heritage. The Scots called these visual illusions “electric,” and attributed them to the devil and mischievous little people. The locals hereabouts were not immune to such irrational notions, either, and The Innocents made full use of their fears.

  The reality was very different. Deep inside the labyrinth of paths lay a soft, grassy valley. It was a sylvan haven in the wilderness surrounded by a natural rocky battlement. A river tumbled into it in a frothy ribbon before winding through it in a deep, serpentine stream. It not only provided fish and sustenance for the flora and fauna, it tempered the overbearing heat and allowed shady trees to grow which gave the valley a more moderate climate than the crags or high plain surrounding the place.

  As far as anyone knew, it had really never been an ancient burial ground. That story had been put around by the first prospector to keep rivals out. The ruse had been pointless as a lack of any worthwhile ore was more than enough to make people pack up and leave, but it was a perfect piece of obfuscation for a gang of criminals.

  It was here Nat Quinn and The Innocents stayed between jobs in the summer months. They didn’t pull robberies in the winter or high summer. Snow was too easy to track through, and drought across the plain made it impossible to work the horses too hard if they were pursued. The rains of spring and autumn made for their most active months, but they tended to stick around in case the weather broke and gave them a chance to pull some extra robberies

  They sat at the table in the leader’s cabin in Ghost Canyon as Quinn pored over the address book, picking out names and addresses which built up a picture of Abigail’s true identity. Jake had grabbed Madeleine’s diary and had been shaking his dishwater-blond head and muttering under his breath since he opened it.

  “She’s spoiled. That David Bartholemew is a lucky man, though. He’s snagged a beauty.” Jake shut the book with a snap and pushed back his seat growling in frustration. The flexing muscle in his jaw made his chiseled cheekbones seem higher and sharper in his handsome face. A closer look at the gaze revealed a man whose bright blue eyes spoke of an old soul in an ageless face. “I can’t read any more. It’s racy stuff and it’s too lonely out here. Too far from the nearest woman.”

  “Yeah. A respectable young woman, huh? And all these years we thought we’d been leading them astray,” murmured Nat without raising his dark eyes from the pages.

  “How come we got stuck with the borin’ one?”

  That got Nat’s full attention. He dropped the book on the table with a thunk. “Boring? Abi? Are you kidding me?”

  “Well, if Abi’s got a wanton side in her she’s hidin’ it well.” Jake teased with a grin. “I ain’t never seen it, and I tend to look real hard for that. I’m always wantin’ wanton.”

  Nat narrowed his eyes and frowned enigmatically off into the corner before glancing back down the address book by his hand. “That’s got to be one of the worst puns you’ve ever made. Don’t forget that Abi’s good at hidin’ things. Much better at it than I thought.”

  Jake let out a low whistle. “What a beauty. Abi’
s lovely, but her sister? She’s somethin’ else. I wonder how many more there are like that at home?”

  “Three according to this address book. You think they’ve all got such different coloring?” asked Nat. He shared his uncle’s fine bone structure, but the brown in his hair tended to shine with burning auburn where the sun caught it. His eyes were limpid pools of darkness which could stir into an obsidian storm or echo bright rays dancing on playful ripples at a moment’s notice. “Maybe they’re half-sisters or something?”

  “The Irish families can have kids with black, red and even blond hair if there’s enough of them, and there usually is. I guess the Scottish are the same. We all come from the same stock, after all. We’re colorful folks. Look at Archie. He was bright ginger, but your own pa could blend in with local Italians in Philly ’til he opened his mouth. I ain’t never seen an amber color like Madeleine’s, though. Stunnin’.”

  Nat grinned. The Conroy clan had been resolutely Irish and instilled a pride in their heritage in all their children. Nat’s mother had been Jake’s oldest sister, leaving them with only eight years of a gap. The Irish in their own family was stretched from Nat’s dark, sloe-eyed, Donegal-Spanish father to the red-faced, frizzy copper-top of a great-uncle who had looked like a leprechaun come to life.

  “I guess. They got the same family name.”

  Jake swung on the rear legs of his chair. “I ain’t never seen hair like it. Pure gold. The color of the best whiskey with the evenin’ sun behind it.”

  “You’re a poet, Jake.” Nat chortled. “Yeah. Madeleine’s something special, all right. A beauty.”

  The older man arched a brow and fixed his nephew with a twinkle in his blue eyes. “Cured you of Abi, has she? She lied about bein’ married.”

  Nat’s eyes darkened. “She ain’t with him, that’s for sure. No man would allow his wife to behave the way she does. He’s either gone or dead.”

  His uncle cast his mind back to his conversation with Abigail in the woods, when vulnerability made both of them open their hearts just a crack. “I can’t see Abi lettin’ any man stop her if she put her mind to it, but I think you’re right. She told me there was no man around because she wouldn’t do as she was told. Maybe she left him?”