Never Love a Lawman Page 38

  “Just out.” He repeated Joe’s story quickly. “It doesn’t look as if Foster tagged along, so I’d feel better knowing you aren’t alone while I’m gone.”

  “I’ll go to Rose’s,” she said.

  He could think of half a dozen other places he wished she’d go, but he also had no grounds for objecting. Sunday afternoon at Rose’s was likely to be quiet. “That’s fine but stay put.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Her easy compliance made him look her over carefully. “I mean it, Rachel.”

  “So do I.” She wished she’d told him earlier about Foster’s unannounced visit to their home, but telling him now was out of the question. “Truly,” she said. “I’ll be fine. And what about you? Are you taking that no-account Beatty boy?”

  “As soon as I yank him off from the piano stool at Rose’s place.”

  Rachel nodded, satisfied. At least he wasn’t setting out alone. “What do you think they’re doing?”

  “Just poking around.”

  “I don’t like it,” said Rachel.

  “It will be fine. Think of it this way: when they don’t find anything, Foster’s likely to abandon this nonsense about challenging your right of ownership. It’s only worth his while if there’s something to gain. His attorneys know that he has almost no chance of winning, especially if he can’t make his case in a California court.”

  “Have you heard anything from Judge Wentworth?”

  “No news to or from Denver. The line is still down somewhere. We’ll have to wait to see if the Admiral arrives tomorrow. John Clay can’t know the bend’s been cleared. If he comes, we’ll send out a message to the judge on the return.”

  Rachel had a sudden urge to touch her husband, and she didn’t hesitate to give in to it. Stepping closer, she laid her hand on his upper arm and rubbed gently, then fussed with the lamb’s wool collar of his coat. Even as she did it, she appreciated that he allowed her. If he was worried about his own safety, it wasn’t readily apparent. It seemed his only concession to the fact that there might be trouble was to have Will with him. “You’ll be careful?”

  “Yes.”

  Reluctant to back away, she fiddled with the buttons on his coat. “You tell Will to be careful, too.”

  “I’ll be sure to do that.”

  Rachel searched his face. “I love you.”

  Wyatt’s throat tightened as he covered her hands with his. “I’m coming home, Rachel. I love you and I’m coming home.”

  She held on a moment longer, then turned away abruptly and hurried into the church, the beginnings of a prayer already forming on her lips.

  Molly and Johnny insisted on escorting Rachel home after the service. She gave in, not because she was particularly concerned about herself, but because they so clearly wanted an excuse to remain together a little while longer. She sent them on their way when they reached the flagstone walk and watched them wander off, fingers tentatively intertwined and heads gently angled toward each other.

  She was still smiling as she walked in the door and removed her bonnet and gloves. It was only as she pivoted in the direction of the parlor that the turned-up edges of her mouth collapsed.

  “Adele?” Rachel’s brow puckered as she hurried into the adjoining room. Adele Brownlee sat perched with the delicacy and stillness of an injured bird on the edge of one of the damask-covered side chairs. Her legs were tucked slightly under the chair, and her arms rested flush to her sides so she occupied as little space as she possibly could. Her narrow, oval-shaped face was turned so it was revealed in only three-quarter profile, but even then as Rachel got closer she could see the beginnings of a bruise on the delicate line of Adele’s jaw. “Let me look at you.” She placed three fingers under Adele’s wobbling chin and gently nudged her head. “Who did this to you?”

  Tears swam in Adele’s leaf-green eyes. She tried to look past Rachel to the front door. “Is Sheriff Cooper coming?”

  Releasing Adele’s chin, Rachel shook her head. “He had to ride out. I don’t know when he’ll be back.”

  Adele fumbled for a handkerchief in her reticule. She pressed the crumpled ball of linen to each of her eyes, momentarily stemming the tide of tears. “I’ll just go, then. Don’t know what I expected he could do anyway.”

  “Come into the kitchen, Adele. Let me look after your face and give you a cup of tea; then you tell me what happened.” Rachel could see that Adele was reluctant, but she didn’t give the girl a chance to refuse. She took Adele firmly by the elbow and insisted she rise. It was immediately apparent that Adele’s face was only the visible evidence of injury. There was a definite favoring of her left side as she began to move.

  Rachel said nothing about this but made Adele comfortable in the kitchen, taking her outerwear and hanging it in the mudroom. She set the kettle on the stove for tea and put out cups and saucers and a small plate of almond cakes. While the water was getting hot, she went to the bedroom and removed her coat, then searched the cupboard in the washroom for liniment. When she returned, Adele was nibbling carefully on one of the almond cakes.

  Rachel pulled the glass stopper from the bottle of liniment. She wrinkled her nose at the strong, pungent odor. “Turn your head this way,” she told Adele.

  Adele recoiled as the scent reached her. “Pardon me for saying so, but that smells like cat piss.”

  Rachel didn’t blink an eye. “I prefer ‘woodsy.’ And I can’t say that this will improve the look of the bruise, because it seems they must all run the full course of color, but it will ease the pain in your jaw. You can take it with you if you like and apply it at your convenience to your ribs.” When Adele looked at her sharply, she simply said, “Well, that’s the other area that’s injured, isn’t it? You weren’t wearing a corset.”

  Adele’s smile was a bit uneven, but there was finally a spark of humor in her eyes. “No,” she said. “I wasn’t.”

  Rachel applied the liniment gently but still had to brace herself against Adele’s wince. Her own experience with this sort of injury told her that it was very recent, probably just early this morning. “You haven’t told me who did this to you,” said Rachel. She corked the bottle and placed it on the table at Adele’s side. While Adele wrestled with what she wanted to do about that, Rachel washed her hands. “You came here to tell Wyatt, didn’t you?”

  Adele shrugged uneasily.

  Rachel began to prepare the tea. “Adele, does Rose know?” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Adele shake her head. “Did this even happen at the house?”

  Adele was a long time in answering. “No, ma’am,” she said finally.

  Rachel sighed. “I thought you girls didn’t go out on your own.”

  “Don’t usually. But Rudy offered me a good wage for entertaining at the Miner Key. Singing, I mean. Not the other.”

  “I knew what you meant. You have a lovely voice.” Rachel put the teapot on the table and took a chair herself. “So you met someone at the saloon. Someone from town?”

  Adele could barely hear herself when she replied, “No.”

  “I didn’t think so,” said Rachel. “Someone from the train, then.”

  “Oh, he was very nice,” Adele said quickly. “Polite. A bit shy, I would say. He kept looking away. Not sneaky, not at all, just like he was out of practice talking to a woman.”

  “You were charmed.” Rachel watched color creep into Adele’s cheeks and was reminded that Adele’s experience did not make her less vulnerable to matters of the heart. In truth, the very opposite was probably true. “I suppose he was charmed as well.”

  “I think so, yes. He complimented my performance several times and invited me to the hotel for dinner.”

  “I see. It must have been very late by then.”

  She nodded. “It was, but I was hungry. My insides get all twisted up before I sing, so I can’t eat more than a couple of salted crackers. And besides, he was…well, he was…”

  “It’s all right,” Rachel said when Adele couldn’t find t
he proper adjective. “I understand.” She poured tea and pushed a cup and saucer in front of her guest, then gently encouraged her to drink. “You went with him, I take it.”

  Adele gripped her cup and offered a shade defensively, “We had dinner in the dining room. It was…” Again, she struggled for the right descriptor. “Lovely,” she said at last. “Yes, it was lovely.”

  “Did he tell you his name, Adele?”

  She was slow to answer, but eventually said, “Pennway. James Pennway.”

  Rachel hardly knew what to make of her own relief. It was undeserved and seemed strangely like a betrayal, but she’d been so certain that Adele’s path had crossed Foster’s that relief was the first emotion to wash over her. “Was he staying at the hotel?”

  “Yes. We went to his room after dinner.” She hesitated slightly. “At least I thought it was his room.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I think it might have belonged to someone else.”

  Rachel still didn’t understand. “Why do you say that?”

  “A man came in much later, close to dawn, and ordered James out. He was very angry.”

  “James?” asked Rachel. “Or the man that sent him away?”

  “The man. I tried to leave with James, but I had more clothes to gather and no wish to be tossed into the hallway in my drawers, so it took time and I was clumsy and the gentleman just got more impatient.”

  “Is that when he hit you?”

  Adele nodded. “I was half in and out of my dress. I couldn’t lift a hand when he struck me. He knocked me off my feet.” She absently raised a hand and touched the back of her head. “I fell against the nightstand.”

  “A fist to the jaw,” Rachel said quietly. “Then a kick to your ribs?”

  Adele regarded her with surprise. “How did you know?”

  Rachel didn’t answer. “Your hip?”

  “There, too.”

  “When you curled up to protect your ribs.”

  “That’s right.”

  Not wanting Adele to see that her fingers were trembling, Rachel quickly set her cup down and folded her hands in her lap. Her heart hammered, and she closed her eyes briefly. “I’m so sorry, Adele.”

  “Why should you be sorry? You didn’t do anything.”

  Shaking her head, Rachel said, “But I think I did.” She carefully described Foster Maddox and saw in Adele’s increasingly curious expression that she had drawn the correct conclusion. “Did he hurt you in any other way?”

  “Rape me, you mean?”

  “Yes, that’s what I mean.”

  “No.” Adele’s fingertips whitened on her teacup. “For a moment…his hands were on his britches like he meant to take them off; then he looked at me real odd, sort of puzzled, sort of sickened, and told me to get out. To get the hell out.”

  “Sickened?” asked Rachel. “Do you mean remorseful?”

  Adele’s laughter was bitter. “I mean like I was something he wanted to scrape off the bottom of his shoe.”

  “Oh, Adele.” Rachel knew that look, remembered too clearly what it was like to be on the receiving end of a glance that ran both hot and cold. She’d always suspected that Foster was more satisfied using his fists on her than he would have been if she’d ever once surrendered. He might revile whores, but they also darkly fascinated him. Uncertain she would ever understand, Rachel sighed. “Finish your tea, and I’ll walk you back. Wyatt asked me not to stay here while he was gone.”

  “Because of him,” said Adele. “We were warned about Foster Maddox.”

  “That’s right. Rose wouldn’t have allowed him in. She knew who she was looking for because Will gave her a description.”

  “Rose told me to do my performance and leave.” Adele hung her head. “I suppose she trusted me to listen to her. She might not even know I didn’t go home last night.”

  “Well, I’m sure she’s worried sick now, and with Wyatt and Will both gone, there’s no telling what she’s planning to do to find you. I think we should get you back as quickly as possible. But first, we’re going to make a photograph.”

  Wyatt slowed Raider to a walk and waited for Will to come abreast. “We should stay here awhile. We’re close to catching up with them.”

  Will nodded. “I was thinking the same thing.” He pointed to the narrow trail ahead of them. Pine trees cast their shadow across the snow. “They’re not making it difficult to follow. Why do you suppose that is?”

  “Could be because they don’t know we’re back here.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Could be because they expect us to follow and want to make certain we can.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Or,” Wyatt drawled, “it could be that they just don’t know any better.”

  “I like that one best.”

  “Thought you would, but I wouldn’t count on it being right.”

  “They already passed the open mine,” Will pointed out. He leaned forward to pat his mare when she started nudging Raider.

  “There’re still places up ahead where they can get a good look at it.” He turned his face toward a small patch of sunlight through the trees and squinted into the blue sky overhead. “Good day for photographs, though. C’mon. Let’s go. If we take Potter’s trail, we can follow their route from above.”

  “I hate Potter’s trail. It’s like climbing a steeple.”

  “It sure is.” Grinning, he urged Raider to veer sharply to the right. “Let’s go.”

  Sighing heavily, but still game, that no-account Beatty boy followed.

  They sighted the surveying party an hour later and from a couple of hundred feet higher. They removed their mounts to a place of safety behind an outcropping of rock and concealed themselves fairly well by hunkering down in the midst of some scraggly limber pine. Wyatt took out his field glasses to observe the movement of the riders below.

  “How many did I tell you there were?” asked Wyatt.

  “Seven. You said Joe told you they took seven mounts.”

  Wyatt passed the glasses. “You see seven down there?”

  “I’m counting four.”

  “That’s what I saw.” He fell silent as he considered what that meant. He recognized Daniel Seward among the riders. The other men made no particular impression on him except that none of them was Foster Maddox. Joe Redmond had been right about that. Wyatt traveled over the trail they’d taken, this time in his mind. The entire time he and Will had followed their exact path, no one had left the trail. Had three riders broken away later or never set out with the others? And if they hadn’t set out, why did they need mounts in town?

  “I don’t like this.” Wyatt tipped back his hat with his forefinger and broadened his view to include more than the surveyors. Sunlight glinted off the virgin snow. There were no trails leading away from the group.

  Will turned and focused the field glasses farther up the mountain. Only animal tracks disturbed the crust. “No one’s above us.”

  “Look,” Wyatt said. “They’re stopping.”

  Will brought his attention around. “Why there?” The riders dismounted beside a shallow stream. Two of them waded in and began poking among the rocks. Daniel Seward started loosening the ropes on the equipment strapped to his horse. “That’s definitely for surveying. He’s taking out the chains.” He handed back the field glasses.

  Wyatt only needed to raise the glasses for a moment to see that Will was right. Seward appeared to be speaking to the man at his side. It wasn’t long before a map was removed from a saddlebag. The pair began poring over it and pointing to where they wanted to set up the equipment for triangulation.

  “There’s no reason for them to survey here,” said Wyatt. “This area is clearly within the property borders. If they’re looking to confirm the northern perimeter, then they’re six miles short. Seward has to know that.”

  Will drew his muffler a fraction higher to cover his chin. “Do you think the men with him know?”

  “Hard to say.” Wya
tt rose slowly from his crouch, raising the field glasses one more time. “There’re two reasons I can think of why Seward would ride out this far, then make a mistake like this. The first is that he has plans to deceive Foster Maddox. The second is that he was sent here to draw us away from town.”

  Will stood and shook out his cramped legs. Without a word, he began moving toward his mare. He took up the reins and mounted. He didn’t have to look back to know that Wyatt was right behind him. The second reason that Wyatt had provided was too compelling to ignore.

  Faint, but unmistakable in pitch and the sustained power of its initial blast, the sound of an engine’s whistle traveled through the mountain pass. Wyatt and Will both paused, cocking their heads. Even the horses stilled to listen.

  “Can’t be the Admiral,” Will said. “Nothin’s scheduled until tomorrow. Kirby doesn’t make a run until Tuesday. Anyway, No. 473 has a whistle that’s pitched half an octave higher.”

  Wyatt hadn’t felt the need to say it aloud, but his line of thinking was exactly the same. “It’s Foster’s train. He’s preparing to leave.” The pronouncement was somehow as mournful and hollow as the whistle that preceded it.

  Ezra Reilly had no chance against the trio that stormed the jail from the alley side. They backed him up against the wall, stuck the barrel of a Remington pistol in his belly, and took the keys to the cell, then felled him with two sharp blows to the head that left him unconscious and bleeding on the floor. Once Franklin and Ross were free, they took it upon themselves to move Ezra to a cell. Ross kept the keys.

  Now five in number, the men moved quickly up the alley from the jail to the bank. Two of the horses were teamed to pull a sled. The third horse carried supplies. When they reached the bank’s rear entrance, one of the men removed black powder charges from a saddlebag and placed them carefully around the door. They backed up and turned away after the fuse was lighted. The door did not explode out of its frame but splintered at the hinges and lock so that it was easily removed.

  Franklin and Ross remained in the alley, alert for anyone who heard the noise and came to investigate the cause. They had assurances that a lot of folks were attending late services and wouldn’t hear a thing above the Bible thumping, but their recent turn in jail made them cautious just the same.