Margaret Brownley (41 page)

“Just a little,” she said.

He took off his buckskin shirt and slid it over her head and down her body. It was way too large for her but the warm softness felt like salve next to her bruised skin.

Fingers on her chin, he tilted her head upward. “I love you, Lucy Fairbanks. To think I almost lost you.” For the longest moment all they could do was stare at one another.

Her father coughed, finally, reminding them of his presence. They pulled apart like two children caught stealing candy.

David reached for the knife strapped to his leg. He rushed to cut the rope from her father’s ankles.

“So you’re Wolf,” her father said. “I never thought we’d meet again.”

“It’s been awhile,” David said. He glanced at Lucy before turning his attention back to her father. “What I said to Lucy . . . I’m sorry you heard that.”

Her father waved his apology away with his good arm. “Lucy already told me how she feels about you.”

“She did?” The two men stared at each other.

“You do know, of course, that any father in his right mind would object to a half-breed courting his daughter.”

Cheeks blazing, Lucy sank next to her father’s side. “Papa,” she whispered. Out loud she said, “His arm is broken.”

David nodded. “We’re going to have to splint your arm before we move you. I’m afraid it will hurt.”

“It already hurts.”

David scoured the water’s edge for something he could use as a splint. He returned with a branch that he hacked lengthwise with his knife. Lucy held on to her father while David carefully placed the two pieces of wood on either side of his broken arm.

Her father stiffened and cried out, his face a ghastly white. Lucy laid a soothing hand on his forehead. “Hold on, Papa.”

“We’re almost done,” David said. He wrapped his kerchief around the splint and tied it in a knot. “That should hold it until we get you to a doctor.”

Her father closed his eyes and she feared he had fainted. She shook him. “Papa?”

He opened his eyes and turned his head toward David. “There were times I wished I had died the night you went down this river.”

“Papa, we’ll talk about this later.”

“No, I want to talk about it now.” He never took his eyes off David. “Things were never the same after that. I spent every minute of every day regretting that night. Hating myself. Do you think you can ever forgive me? Forgive all of us?”

The roaring sound of water seemed almost deafening in the waiting silence that followed. “I’m the one who should be asking for forgiveness,” David said at last. His powerful bare chest gleaming in the sunlight, he lifted his gaze to Lucy.

“You? What for?” her father asked.

“For not coming back sooner. For not letting you know I was alive. I had no idea anyone would care one way or the other whether I lived or died.” He beseeched Lucy with his eyes. “Had I done so, things might have turned out very different.”

Lucy suspected he referred to her mother’s death and she shook her head. No good could come from dwelling on what might have been.

“You were a child,” her father said, as if to guess her thoughts. “You had no way of knowing what the rest of us were going through. You owe us no apology. None.”

“Papa’s right,” Lucy added. “Nothing that happened was your fault.”

David’s eyes locked with hers. The tenderness in their depths quickened her pulse and turned her mouth dry.

“So what do you say?” Her father held out his good hand. “Do you think we can put the past behind us?”

“I think it’s about time,” David said, grabbing hold of her father’s offered hand.

A cry of joy broke from her lips. It wasn’t only forgiveness she saw flow between them, but acceptance. Every bone in her body ached from the battering of water and rocks, but at that moment she felt like the happiest woman alive.

Her father pulled his hand out of David’s. “Now kiss her already, would you?”

David stared at him, clearly baffled. “I thought you disapproved of me courting your daughter.”

“I said any father in his right mind would disapprove.” Her father grimaced and groaned. “You just happened to catch me when I’m out of my mind. So what in blazes are you waiting for? Hurry up and kiss her so we can get out of here.”

Two hours later Wolf stood outside a deserted cabin where Barnes and Weatherbee had been held captive.

Both men had been locked inside and were now giving their statements to the marshal. Mrs. Weatherbee had tricked her husband into coming to the cabin. She hit him on the head and, while he was unconscious, tied him up and locked him inside. Barnes had a different story. After hitting him over the head with a paperweight, she then forced him to the cabin at gunpoint.

Lucy had driven her father to Doc Myers’s, but Wolf stayed behind. He had yet to come face-to-face with the fourth and last man who put him on that boat. Weatherbee was his only hope in locating the box taken from him.

Barnes had lost weight since Wolf last saw him, and he now sported half a scraggly beard. No whiskers grew on his scar, which now looked more purple than red.

“It’s about time you got here,” Barnes said, glaring at the marshal. “That . . . that woman is a maniac. I offered to help her son get elected and this is the thanks I get.”

“You tried to blackmail me,” Mrs. Weatherbee yelled. “You said if I paid you, you’d keep quiet about the boy in the boat.”

“Asking for hush money isn’t the same as blackmail,” Barnes shouted back.

“Quiet! Both of you,” Marshal Armstrong ordered. He turned to Mrs. Weatherbee’s husband. “What’s your story?”

Weatherbee had been held captive considerably longer than Barnes and he looked it. His clothes hung on his thin frame. Dark bags skirted sunken eyes and the skin above his unkempt beard was sallow, but he didn’t mince words. He pointed at his wife. “She kept us locked up like animals.”

“Quit your griping,” Mrs. Weatherbee said, looking remarkably self-righteous considering the trouble she was in. “I fed you twice a day, didn’t I?”

“You tried to kill me!” her husband argued.

Mrs. Weatherbee discounted his accusation with a wave of her hand. “Nonsense. I couldn’t kill you even if I wanted to. I couldn’t kill anyone. I’m a Christian.”

Marshal Armstrong grimaced in disgust and grabbed her by the arm. “Reverend Wells may want to straighten you out in that regard. But he’ll have to get in line behind the sheriff.”

He hauled his prisoner away and Barnes followed them. Wolf stepped in front of Weatherbee, whose wheezy breathing and concave chest indicated he was asthmatic. A distant memory came to the fore. One of the youths had trouble breathing, but at ten years old, Wolf had had no way of knowing the cause.

Weatherbee looked him up and down. “So you’re the boy,” he rasped.

“Was,” Wolf replied.

Weatherbee pursed his lips. “Barnes told me you were alive. I couldn’t believe it.” He shook his head. “Still can’t.”

Wolf waited for Weatherbee to blame that long-ago night on his present circumstances but he made no attempt to do so.

“Did Barnes tell you why I came back?” Wolf asked.

“At first he told me you wanted money to keep quiet. Eventually he told me what you really wanted. Captivity can make an honest man out of pretty near anyone, even Barnes.” As if he ran out of breath, he stopped before adding, “I remember the box. Had an animal on the lid.”

Wolf felt his hopes rise. “A wolf. Do you know where it is now?”

Weatherbee coughed and seemed to gasp for breath. Alarmed, Wolf reached for the man’s arm but Weatherbee waved away his concern.

“Sorry. Wish I could be more help.” His voice drifted away as he gazed at the road. His wife sat rigid in the saddle while the marshal prepared to tow her horse. “What’s gonna happen to her?”

“I reckon she’ll go to jail,” Wolf said.
If she’s lucky
. A less desirable option would be an insane asylum.

“Drat! If I go into the ministry like I plan, I’m gonna have to forgive her. Do you think God will give me a pass if I don’t?”

“I reckon that’s between you and him,” Wolf said. Weatherbee’s lips were bluish in color. “Come on, you need to see Doc Myers. I’ll take you there.”

Weatherbee shook his head. “Not till I talk to Millard. I dreaded facing you, but not half as much as I dread facing my stepson. What am I gonna tell him about his mother?”

“The truth,” Wolf said. In the end, that’s all anyone really wanted to know. “Tell him his mother’s lost her way.” Ambition could do that to a person. But so could seeing yourself through the eyes of others—a mistake he wouldn’t repeat.

Following the Sunday morning service, Pastor Wells held the plans up for the new Rocky Creek Community Church. It was a hot humid day in July and everyone was anxious to go home. Nevertheless, the entire congregation crowded in for a closer look.

Lucy glanced up at David and smiled. “They’re going to love it,” she whispered. “I know they are.” She squeezed his arm.

David patted her hand and gave her a quick grin. “Is that a positive?” he whispered back.

“Absolutely,” she said, broadening her smile.

Reverend Wells cleared his throat, and after a short introductory speech he pointed to the drawing. “This will be the classroom,” he said proudly. “And here is the library.” He glanced at Marshal Armstrong. “Now your jail cells are safe,” he said.

This brought a round of laughter from the churchgoers. Everyone knew Jenny had tried to persuade her marshal husband into turning one of the jail cells into a lending library.

“And this is my office,” Pastor Wells continued with a fond smile at his wife, Sarah.

Sarah nodded. “If that don’t take the rag off the bush. Does that mean I get my kitchen table back?”

“Absolutely, my dear,” Pastor Wells said.

Mrs. Taylor clapped her hands in approval. “Oh, this is so exciting,” she squealed.

Mrs. Hitchcock concurred. “Oh, it is, it is.”

Richard Crankshaw hovered nearby, but no one paid attention to him until he stepped in front of the building plans and faced the crowd. “You do know, of course, that this church was designed by . . . that man, an outsider.” He pointed to David. He didn’t say it out loud but the words
half-breed
were clearly written in the curl of his mouth.

A dead silence followed and Lucy’s heart sank. Already it was starting, everything her father and David had warned her about. She gazed up at David but his thoughts were hidden behind a stone mask.

Crankshaw addressed the gathering as if he had every right to do so. “I asked one of my men to draw up new plans for the church and I believe you will find them much more to your liking.” No sooner were the words out of his mouth than he raised his arm and snapped his fingers, signaling to a man at the back of the crowd to join him. The man came forward, held up a set of plans, and Crankshaw spent the next few minutes detailing his design—a basic church setup with none of the unique elements Wells had planned.

Pastor Wells stepped forward. “There’s no need to trouble yourself, Mr. Crankshaw. We already have plans for the church.”

Crankshaw gave the pastor a benign smile. “I’m sure that the good citizens of Rocky Creek would prefer a church designed by one of their own.”