Wild Burn (18 page)

The hand petting her had stilled, pausing several seconds before resuming its careful rhythm. “He has known nothing but death and violence for years. Eventually, these soldiers forget that they are fighting hatred, and they allow it to consume them. Everything they see is a battle. Everyone they meet is an enemy.”

Tears had leaked from Moira’s eyes to wet the pillow. “Why are you defending him? He hurt
me
. Me.”

“Because you need to forgive him, and for that, you need to understand him.”

The bruises on her back and arms had protested as she sat up, pushing away Mother’s hand. “I can’t.” Her breath had hitched. “I c-can’t forgive him.”

Mother had looked at her, her lined face expressionless in the dim moonlight through the window. “You must.”

Anger, hot, furious anger, had replaced the numbness that had suffused Moira in the hours after the attack, a numbness that had allowed her to speak to the city police, unhelpful as they’d been, without breaking down. “I won’t, then. Perhaps I
can
forgive, but I won’t. He doesn’t deserve it.”

“You are a daughter of God”—Moira had flinched violently at the phrase, not that Mother noticed—“and His servant. You will find forgiveness in your soul for this man who so wronged you, Sister Verity.”

Moira had sat silently for long, perilous moments, staring down at her hands, listless in her lap. Not an hour earlier, she’d scrubbed blood from beneath her nails. There were finger-shaped bruises manacling her wrists, and scrapes on her palms from the brick of the alley when she’d fallen. “I’m not Sister Verity,” she’d said quietly. “Not anymore.”

That night changed Moira’s life, but here her life was, changing again. Though Red Creek had sustained her until now, holding her in stasis, she rather thought it was Delaney playing the role of catalyst.

She was smiling. She was…she was
happy
.

She’d never thought she would get to be happy.

Moira settled the sacks of cornmeal and sugar on the front counter. “How are you today, Mr. Vangaard?” she asked the round-faced, bespectacled store owner.

“Miss Tully.” He greeted her with a cheerful smile, his thick Norwegian accent drawing out the vowel in her name until it sounded as though there were five
O
s instead of the single
U
. “I am well, thank you. Did you find what you needed?”

“I did.” She counted the proper coin from her pocket and slid it across the dark-stained counter. “Cristine did well on her vocabulary oral this week,” she said, naming the man’s seven-year-old daughter. “Did she tell you?”

His cheeks bunched with pride as his smile grew. “Oh, yes. Crissy was so pleased.”

Just as she gathered her purchases and headed for the door, bidding Mr. Vangaard goodbye, he called out, “Did the sheriff ever find you, Miss Tully?”

She froze. “The sheriff?”

“A letter came in for you from Boston.” Mr. Vangaard also served as the town’s postmaster. “As one came for him from the same sender, Hank said he would deliver yours to you, as well.”

Which meant that Mother Superior had written, to both Moira and her nephew, Sheriff Nelson. “I…haven’t seen him yet today, Mr. Vangaard,” she said, trying to keep the sudden tension from her voice. “Thank you for letting me know.”

She quit the store, her smile long gone, and set course for the jail across the street. That the sheriff had taken her mail with the intention of delivering it to her personally, a seemingly innocent gesture by anyone’s standards, struck Moira as extremely unsettling. She didn’t like the man. He didn’t like her. Given the lack of goodwill that bloomed between them, knowing he had a letter addressed to her made her decidedly
un
happy.

Shifting her packages to one arm, she pushed open the jailhouse door. “Sheriff?” The room was unlit, the barred cells at the back free of prisoners. Steeling her spine against a sense of unease, she set a hand to the door and let it swing further into the building. She didn’t step inside, however. “Sheriff Nelson?”

A creaking plank on the boardwalk behind her had her whirling, just as a hand brushed her shoulder. “You looking for me?”

“You have a letter for me,” she answered without preamble, tilting her chin to stare up at his lean face. She held out her hand. “I’ll take it now, please.”

“Letter?”

She gripped her purchases closer to her side. “Mr. Vangaard told me you took my letter.”

“Oh. That letter.” His gruff voice was bland, unfriendly. “Here.” Reaching into his vest pocket, he withdrew a wrinkled square of ivory paper and handed it to her.

Mother Superior’s precise, slanted handwriting covered the front of the envelope, but upon turning it over, she saw the seal had been broken. “Did you—?”

“No. It was already open. But I know what’s in it.”

She swallowed past the sudden lump in her throat. “Oh?”

Nelson leaned a casual shoulder against the exterior wall of the jailhouse. “You’re going to Denver, Miss Tully, to see the U.S. Marshal. My aunt asks that I escort you there.”

She shook her head, staring down at the envelope but not pulling free the letter. She didn’t have to read its contents to know the letter meant nothing good for her. “I don’t understand.”

“Didn’t you know?” His tone was sly and the tiniest bit mean. “They arrested that soldier who…had his way with you.”

The cornmeal and sugar fell to the boardwalk from arms gone slack, brown paper splitting on impact and contents spraying soundlessly across the boards. “Wh-what?” Her limbs, her chest, her face felt numb, but her fingers wouldn’t unclench from around the letter, and the paper crinkled in her fist.

The expression creasing Nelson’s thin features was pitying. “Did you think I didn’t know?”

“I…I…”

“I’ve known about you and Sergeant Flock since before you arrived.”

“There is no ‘me and Sergeant Flock’, Sheriff,” she snapped, hating the feel of her assailant’s name on her tongue. It made her want to vomit and cry and maybe scream once or twice. She was starting to shake, beginning with her fingertips and sneaking slowly up her arms.

Shoving the letter gracelessly into the pocket of her skirt, Moira knelt to salvage her purchases. She turned the packages over so the sealed tops would act as the bases. At least three-quarters of the cornmeal and sugar remained, and she could carry them back to her cabin easily enough. There were painted canisters she’d brought with her from Boston, and those would do just fine for holding—

A hand was thrust in front of her face, and she shrank away instinctively, nearly tumbling onto her backside.

Nelson sighed resignedly and turned his hand so the palm faced upward. “Let me help you, Miss Tully.”

Silently, she handed him the broken sack of sugar, then tucked the cornmeal in the crook of her elbow and stood. When she’d squared her shoulders, she reached for the package he held.

He handed it to her. “I don’t much like Catholics, Miss Tully. My mama was raised Catholic, but she converted when she married my father.” He removed his hat and held it before him, rotating it between his hands. “I’m the only one who’s in touch with my aunt since my mama died, and anything I do for her I do because I loved my mother. That includes getting you this teaching job in Red Creek, and it will also include taking you to Denver on Tuesday.”

Moira couldn’t bring herself to meet his gaze, choosing instead to watch the jerky spin of his hat in his hands. The numbness was fading, leaving an unbearable burning in its wake.

“I don’t like you. And what happened to you? I’ll be honest, I don’t feel bad for you. The only reason I don’t care if you’re in my town and teaching these children is because you renounced Catholicism.”

Her cheeks flamed, but not in shame—no, Moira wanted to hit him. She wanted to pull back her arm and let fly with a right hook to rival Delaney’s from his saloon brawl the other night. Her jaw clenched as her fists couldn’t.

The sheriff pointed at her with his hat. “After Denver, I don’t want any more trouble from you. Not about the Cheyenne, not about anything. I don’t want any more letters from my aunt about you. Understand?”

Finally, she locked eyes with him and allowed him to see the depth of her contempt for him. “I understand, Sheriff. But I’ll find my own escort to Denver—do
you
understand?” Not waiting for him to answer, she brushed past him. “Good day, Sheriff Nelson.”

She didn’t greet the people she passed as she hurried down the boardwalk, didn’t do anything except stare straight ahead. One step after another, steady, measured, her mind a grateful blank until she was at her cabin door.

After setting the broken packages on her table, Moira dropped into a chair and slowly, so slowly, pulled the crumpled envelope from her pocket. Sucking in a trembling breath, she drew out the letter and flattened it on the tabletop under her clammy palms.

Then she began to read.

My dear Verity…

Chapter Twenty

“Do you always bury them?” John White Horse asked from his position leaning against a birch tree.

“Yeah.”

“We don’t bury our dead.”

Del sighed, throwing the final shovelful of gravel-filled soil atop the third grave. “I don’t have time to build scaffolds for every Indian I kill.” He propped his elbow on the shovel’s handle. “And I don’t like to burn bodies.” He’d witnessed enough indiscriminate burning during Sherman’s march through Georgia.

John glanced around their section of forest. There were fewer pine trees here, the ground less overrun with creeping roots. The three graves from yesterday lay a few yards away, unmarked but untouched by the wildlife. “You are not what I expected, Crawford.”

Del didn’t respond. His coat and hat hung on a nearby branch, but he was too hot to don them as he turned his back on the fresh graves and headed for his horse. After lashing the shovel to his saddle and grabbing his hat and coat to drape across the horn, he mounted in a creak of leather and brass. “You coming?”

John gathered the reins of his paint, toed the stirrup and swung his leg over the horse’s back. “So how do you prove to your government that you’ve killed the
savages
? You do not take their scalps.”

Del urged his horse forward through the trees. “I got a different system of proving things.”

“Very cryptic of you.”

“Does you knowing matter?” He settled his hat low on his brow. “It’s private.”

“And that is good enough for your employer?” John sounded skeptical.

“Yup. It’s good enough for them.” Del had no intention of discussing his methods with the other man, even if today had brought them a step closer toward some sort of…friendship. Wouldn’t Moira be pleased. “Need to thank you for your help here,” he said gruffly. “Can’t have been easy hunting down your own.”

For several moments there was nothing but the sound of hooves snapping twigs and the rhythmic shifting of saddles on blankets as the horses made their steady way through the forest. “That is a difficult statement to qualify, Crawford. Cloud Rider was not of my tribe, yet he was of my people.” He hesitated a beat. “I suppose it would be similar to your war.”

“Suppose,” Del agreed quietly. “I’m thankful just the same.”

“Are you going to tell the sheriff what we found?”

A loaded question, and one Del wasn’t certain how to answer.

He had met up with John hours earlier halfway to the mines, en route from the clearing. The Indian had collected a horse from somewhere and tied it to a nearby tree, while he himself straddled a high tree branch, studying all below with a watchful eye. He had been waiting for Del, and together they had hiked northeast through the woods, looking for signs of the remaining dog soldiers, while John explained his theory about where they would find Cloud Rider’s camp.

Del and John had nearly stumbled into the braves’ laps, so calmly did they prepare weaponry around their small fire no more than fifty yards beyond the mines. It was a wonder none of the workers had noticed the dog soldiers’ presence, but Del took advantage of the braves’ relaxed attitude and did what he’d been doing for long months.

He aimed his Remington at their heads and shot them.

Two were down by the time the third, Cloud Rider himself, had nocked an arrow in his bow and loosed it in Del’s direction, missing by mere inches. Before Del could retaliate, John had sent an arrow of his own flying into the rogue Indian’s bare chest, straight through his heart.

Del supposed that when a man he’d shot through the shoulder saved his life, that made the man in question a friend. Especially seeing how the action left John grimacing in pain.

It had been easy. Very, very easy, and though Del knew he was terrifyingly good at his job, he couldn’t remember the last time it had been so easy. Not the killing itself—killing always left its mark—but that the three braves had, in fact, been like sitting ducks, waiting for him and his revolver.

They had been far too confident in the safety of their position near the mines. And that was…suspicious.

After a search of their temporary camp had turned up dollar coins and, strangely, nearly a dozen rifles, Del’s suspicions ratcheted up from wary to accusatory. He just wished he could put together the pieces, so he knew what to say to the sheriff when he paid the man a visit tomorrow, but Del couldn’t quite connect the dots, though the answer hovered right in front of him. His head was always a little bleary after a kill.

So he answered John with, “Not tonight. I’ll find Nelson tomorrow, tell him there’s no longer an Indian threat to Red Creek.” The sun was sinking as they broke through the forest’s edge on the opposite side of town, nearest the mines. “Do you wanna be there when I do?”

“Yes.” John’s deep voice carried a hint of resignation. “But I do not think you should tell him about the money, or about the guns.”

“Can I ask why?” Not that Del didn’t agree, but he wanted John’s take on it.

“Dog soldiers hate the white man and abhor his way of life. That means no coins or paper money, and guns like those?” John shook his head. “Those were new, not traded or taken off their kills.”