Colorado Dawn (40 page)

But Silas clutched at Ash like he was his salvation. “I’m sorry,” he choked out, tears rolling down his dirty face. “But he started yelling and it scared me. Then he ran at me and hit me and the knife slipped and then he stopped moving. I didn’t mean to hurt him, I swear.”

With a soft sound—something between a sigh and a moan—the reverend dropped his head into his hand.

Ash already guessed the answer but made himself ask. “Who did you hurt, lad?”

Silas wiped a sleeve over his runny nose. “The smiling man.”

“Do you know his name?”

“I don’t remember. But he lives in a little cabin with trees all around and a mountain that looks like a face turned sideways. I had a picture of him, but Clete took it.”

With a shaking hand, the reverend pulled a photograph from his pocket and held it out. “A picture like this?”

“You found it!” Smiling broadly, his tears forgotten, Silas took the photograph and held it up to Ash and Brodie, pointing at the figure beside the cabin. “See? The smiling man and the cabin and the mountain that looks like a face turned sideways.” His grin faded. “I wanted to go there. Whenever Clete hurt me, I pretended I was safe with the smiling man by his cabin. But I never was.”

After a long silence, the reverend cleared his throat and said, “Would you like to go there with me, Silas?”

Si looked up, his bruised face so desperate with hope Ash had to look away.

“Are you sure about this, Reverend?” Brodie warned softly. “By his own admission, the boy—”

“Didn’t know what he was doing,” Zucker cut in before the sheriff could finish the sentence. “He’s a gentle soul that has been sorely used. It’s time he had a home, I think. And I can surely use the help fixing up the cabin for when my wife comes. What can be the harm, Sheriff, if we give this poor boy a second chance?”

Brodie dinna respond, and when Ash looked over to see why, he found the sheriff staring at the papers and pictures that had spilled into Silas’s lap.

“Where did you get the pictures and those papers, Silas?”

The fear came back in the lad’s face. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to take them. But Clete was going to throw them away, and I didn’t think the smiling man would need them anymore.”

“Can I see?”

“You won’t hurt the pictures, will you?”

“No. I won’t hurt them. But if you’re worried about it, I’ll just look at the papers. All right?” Brodie held out his hand.

Reluctantly, Silas handed them over.

Brodie sifted through them. A letter from the reverend to his brother—which he passed over to the reverend—and some folded papers. He opened them to find a printed form with a seal stamped on the front. “Son of a bitch,” he said wonderingly. “They were right here in Silas’s jacket the whole time.” Laughing, he held them up for Ash and the reverend to see. “The missing claim papers. It’s all here. Take a look.”

The reverend studied them carefully, his expresssion bouncing between wonder and joy and sadness. Everything was properly registered—description, location, assay report. Ephraim Zucker had definitely struck gold.

“I guess it’s settled then,” he said, tucking the papers into his jacket pocket. “I’ll go back to the claims office first thing tomorrow and have the deed registered in my name as Ephraim’s next of kin. Then I’ll pick up some supplies, and Silas and I will head to the cabin. It’s time to put all this pain and ugliness behind us. Right, Si?”

“Okay. Can Tricks come with us?”

The reverend must have seen Ash’s instantaneous rejection of the idea, because he smiled and shook his head. “I think Mr. Wallace needs Tricks to stay with him. But perhaps we can find a pup along the way.”

“Okay.”

Ash nodded his gratitude to Zucker. Odd, how things had turned out. The reverend was sitting rich, Silas had a good home, and Cletus Cochran was roasting in hell where he belonged. Maybe the long arm of Providence had had a hand in all this after all.

Before leaving the stable, Ash got a blank bank draft from his saddlebag, filled it out as best he could, then went to the kitchen, where Miss Hathaway and Edwina Brodie were sitting at the table peeling potatoes, and Mrs. Kemble was bent before the oven door, basting a ham with a honey and applesauce glaze that made Ash’s stomach rumble. Nodding to the two at the table, he turned to the landlady. “If I might have a word with you, ma’am?”

She straightened, her expression none too friendly. “So you’re finally awake. Never knew a body could sleep so long. But at least when you’re asleep, you’re not causing trouble.”

“My apologies.” He put on his best smile. It dinna even faze the hardhearted shrew. “I thought we should settle up before we leave tomorrow.” He held out the bank draft and hoped he had written it correctly.

Wiping her hands on her apron, she eyed it suspiciously. “What’s that?”

“Payment for our rooms and the fine meals you’ve provided and for stabling the animals. I trust it will be sufficient.”

She took the draft and studied it, a frown drawing her gray brows together. “More than sufficient. In fact, double sufficient. Why’s that?”

“For the aggravation our shenanigans have caused you.”

“Humph.” She squinted at the signature. “I can hardly read this chicken scratching. Looks like it says Fifth Viscount of Ashby. Who’s that?”

“Me.”

She glared up at him. “I thought you were Angus Wallace.”

“I am.”

“Is this more of your shenanigans?”

“It is not,” Maddie’s voice cut in as she entered the room. “My husband is indeed Viscount Ashby, a Scottish lord and member of
the British peerage. But rather than attract mawkish attention, he prefers to go by his given name when visiting America.”

Ash stared at his wife in amazed amusement as she glided by, every inch the grand dame. The two black eyes and sticking plastered nose rather tarnished the effect, but she nonetheless cut a striking figure.

“Lord Ashby was also a decorated colonel in the Prince of Wales’s Own Tenth Hussars,” she went on, proudly. “Which is, of course, the most famed cavalry unit in the entire British Army.”

The
entire
army, Ash mused, sharing a glance with the ladies at the potato bowl and wondering how the other regiments would feel about that.

Mrs. Kemble sniffed. “I never heard of someone having two names.”

His viscountess leaned over to whisper in her ear, “His family lives in a castle.”

That got the old biddy’s blood pumping. “Do they? A real castle? Like real lords and ladies?”

“Exactly like real lords and ladies.” With a triumphant smile, his lady wife sailed on by, her work complete. “May I help you set the table, Mrs. Kemble? I daresay you’ve never before had a real viscountess do your bidding.”

Edwina Brodie rolled her eyes. Miss Hathaway coughed into the peelings.

“A viscountess,” Mrs. Kemble breathed. “Wait until I tell Ruby.” Then rushing into the dining room after Maddie, she called, “Would that be better than a baron?”

The reverend and Silas departed early the next morning amid invitations for them to bring Mrs. Zucker to Heartbreak Creek for a visit. “So you can meet the children and help us christen the baby,” Edwina urged.

“And I should have the last of the rooms in the hotel refurbished
soon,” Lucinda added. “If you’ll let me know when you’re coming, I’ll set aside one of the suites.”

“And Tricks would be so happy to see you, Silas,” Maddie put in, dabbing at her eyes.

Ash smiled dutifully and rocked on his heels, wondering how much longer these bluidy good-byes would drag on. By his calculations, they were already an hour late if they planned to billet in Jefferson that night.

While the women prattled on, he mentally went through the list of preparations: The landlady and Chub had been paid. The doctor had checked Thomas, pronounced him fit for travel—as long as he dinna ride horseback or sit too long—then collected his fee and left. Maddie’s equipment and the ladies’ valises had been stowed, along with extra water and food. Weapons had been secured. He had personally inspected the vehicles, and the animals were harnessed and waiting. All that remained was to load three wee women into the buggy.

A monumental task, apparently. He looked over to Brodie for help in moving things along, but the sheriff just shrugged like there was nothing he could do. He would have made a poor drill sergeant.

Finally the reverend released the brake. As soon as the buckboard rolled out into the street, Ash politely herded the women toward the house, advising them to attend their needs and muster by the wagons in ten minutes.

Thirty minutes later, they came out the back door, followed by the landlady, the deaf widow, and her simpering daughter. Fearing another series of protracted good-byes, Ash marched toward them.

“Thank you for your hospitality, Mrs. Kemble. It has been a delight to meet you all, but now we must bid you good-bye. Ladies?” He made a shooing motion.

They looked at him.

“Mount up.”

They continued to look at him.

“Now!”

Fifteen minutes later, they were on their way back home to Heartbreak Creek.

Home?

When had he begun to think of Heartbreak Creek as home?

Twenty-two

I
t was Tuesday afternoon, and Pru and the children were walking back from school and speculating on whether or not it would snow that night, when Brin shrieked, “Pa!” and took off down the boardwalk so fast her floppy hat flew off her head. Before it touched ground, the other three charged after her, shouting and waving.

Pru stopped to retrieve the hat, then watched in amusement as Declan staggered under the assault of his three youngest children trying to climb all over him. Only R. D. remained aloof—being too big and old for such childish displays—until Edwina came out of the hotel and launched an attack of her own on him.

Not seeing Thomas and thinking he might be around back, Pru slipped into the alley that ran beside the mercantile to the back-street.

She had thought of little else but him in the days he had been gone. “Heart mate” he had called her. A fanciful word. But there was an element of truth in it. She did feel connected to Thomas on a level beyond the physical or even the intellectual. It was a spiritual bonding that transcended everything that had gone before. In his eyes, she was not just the scarred daughter of a slave, or Edwina’s
half-black half sister, or Lone Tree’s captive, or the negress teaching in the little schoolhouse by the creek.

She was his heart mate.

The idea of that—of him, of seeing him again after their short separation—made her laugh out loud.

Quickening her steps as she reached the backstreet, she turned toward the hotel. Maddie’s wagon was parked by the stoop. Lucinda’s buggy stood beside it, with Thomas’s painted horse tied to the rear.

Filled with equal parts of anticipation and nervousness, Pru walked briskly down the track, searching for his sturdy form among the figures milling at the back of the wagon.

Tricks raced by, Agnes nipping at his heels. Pru smiled, watching them. If it was possible for dogs to laugh, they would be doing it.

Ahead, voices rose as Maddie supervised her husband in the lowering of the stair at the back of the wagon. Lucinda hurried out of the hotel, followed by a white-haired man carrying a black satchel—Doc Boyce? Mr. Wallace spoke to him for a moment, then the doctor hurried up the steps and into the wagon.

Why? Who needed a doctor?

Pru walked faster, dread growing as she noted everyone was accounted for except Thomas.

“Pru!” Declan called from behind her.

She stopped and waited for him to catch up. What she saw in his face as he drew near sent dread blossoming into full-blown fear. “What’s wrong? Is it Thomas? Has something happened?”

“He’s been shot. But he’s alive.”

Shot. Alive. Hurt.
“How bad?”

“He was doing okay, but this morning when he woke up, his fever—”

She whirled and started walking again.

He fell into step beside her.

“Where are you taking him?” she asked, a part of her amazed at how calm her voice sounded despite the terror clawing at her throat.
“He can’t stay at the sheriff’s office or in his room in your carriage house all alone with nobody to see to him.”

“Ed can—”

“In her condition? And what if he tries to get up, or needs to be sponged, or…something.”

“He won’t stay in the hotel. You know that.”

“Then bring him to the school. We can clean out the storage room.”

“I don’t know if that would be wise, Pru. People might talk.”

“Then let them!” She rounded on him, patience gone. “There’s always talk—about me, Thomas, anyone who’s different. I don’t care. I’m used to it.” Realizing she still held Brin’s hat, she thrust it toward him and resumed walking. “Bring him to the school. I’ll tend him.”

“But—”

“Bring him, Sheriff! Or I’ll find a way to do it myself.”

He said no more until they reached the wagon. The Wallaces and Lucinda still hovered at the back steps, looking lost in the way people did when faced with a crisis they could do nothing about. “Is the doctor still inside?” Pru asked.

“Aye,” Mr. Wallace said.

“Please don’t unharness the mules just yet,” she instructed him. “We’ll be moving Thomas to the school when Doc Boyce is finished. I could use your help clearing the storeroom and getting him inside.”

“Of course.”

“Have you everything you’ll need?” Lucinda asked.

Pru shot her a look of gratitude—not just for the offer, but for not questioning her decision. “Perhaps some bedding. A cot, if you have one.”

“I’ll have Yancey check the storeroom.” Motioning Maddie to follow, she started back inside, issuing instructions as she went. “Ask Cook to pack a basket. Miriam can collect bedding. We’ll take everything over in the buggy so it will be there when he arrives.”

Pru looked up at the closed door, gathering courage to face what
she might find when she went in there. She knew it would be a shock, seeing Thomas laid low. He had always seemed so indomitable, so unstoppable. Even wounded, he had ridden days to find her after Lone Tree had taken her to the Indian encampment. It seemed impossible that now that she’d allowed him into her heart, he might be torn from it forever.