Another Dawn (16 page)

      
This was wrong and cruel and... Sofie bit her lower lip as tears soaked her face.
 

      
Then she remembered what Ab had said at breakfast.
"That boy killed his own pa...."
 
Jenny was truly alone. Both her parents were dead, and her brother had been sentenced to hang.

      
Squeezing her eyes shut, Sofie saw the dark-haired woman again. Though the murmuring she heard was only Mrs. Fleming speaking to Jenny, the face she saw was her mother's. She knew it.

      
The vision spoke, and Sofie heard the words clearly. Undeniably.

      
"Your daddy's gone to sleep, sweetheart,"
her dream mother said, pressing her cool cheek against Sofie's.
"He won't ever wake up this time, but at least he won't hurt anymore."

      
Sofie opened her eyes after the image vanished. Her father had died, too. "Daddy," she whispered, knowing somehow that she'd been very young when tragedy struck her family.
My family
. If only she could remember her last name, then she could go to her mother.

      
She could go home, where she belonged.

      
"Home."

      
A gray mist swirled around her and the room swayed. Sofie grappled for something substantial enough to prevent her fall, but all she found was air.

      
She hit the floor with a jarring thud. Pain stabbed through her skull.

      
Then there was nothing.

      
Luke shivered as he walked down Redemption's only street–a wide, muddy, rutted road, lined with haphazard buildings, and crowded by the majestic Rockies on all sides.

      
A picturesque setting for death.

      
God, how many funerals? He'd lost count after six. Innocent men, women and children, killed by smallpox–unnecessarily, even in 1891.
 

      
From the corner of his eye, he caught sight of the small stone building which served as the jail. Jarred from his return trek to the schoolhouse, he paused to stare at the barred window, wondering about the prisoner inside.

      
Luke swallowed hard. Bars. A chilly breeze chased itself down the pass and encircled him. Father Salazar's black robe flowed around him as he stood there staring. And waiting.

      
After a moment, the youth appeared at the window, his shaggy blond hair completely concealing one eye. The barest hint of golden stubble covered his chin.

      
Luke took a step toward the window. The kid seemed oblivious to being watched. Either that, or he was beyond caring.

      
Luke understood that.

      
Too damned well.

      
Slowly, he approached the jail, drawn to seek out the boy. The condemned prisoner. The murderer. Had he really killed his own father? Or, like Luke, had Shane Latimer been wrongly accused, convicted and sentenced?

      
Guilty...guilty...guilty...

      
Luke would never forget the sound of those words. Nor would he forget the judge's condemning words as he'd sentenced Luke to die for a crime he hadn't committed.

      
And Grandpa...

      
Pain wrenched through Luke's gut and he froze in mid-step. His breathing labored, he stared at the prisoner, whose gaze was directed toward the schoolhouse at the far edge of town. Studying the boy's expression, Luke saw pain, fear and helplessness etched across the young features.
 

      
Father Salazar's words reverberated through Luke's mind yet again:
"Go with God, my son."

      
Why now?

      
Because Father Salazar would've spoken to the boy, just as he'd spoken to Luke. He would have offered comfort and reassurance in the face of death.

      
You're taking this priest stuff too seriously, Nolan
. So what? His impersonation wasn't hurting anyone and, as impossible as it seemed, Luke had actually brought comfort to the citizens of this cursed town. Besides, this kid deserved the same consideration Father Salazar had shown Luke.

      
Even if he was guilty?

      
Luke hesitated for only a moment.
Yeah, even then.

      
Had anyone told Shane Latimer about his mother's death? Or that his sister would recover? Luke clenched his fists at his sides, making his decision even as he continued toward the window.

      
The boy must've heard Luke's approach, because he retreated into the dingy cell, his gaze wary as he stared at his uninvited guest. "Who are you?" he asked when Luke stopped outside the window.

      
"Lu–"
 
He froze and drew a ragged breath. "Father Salazar," he said, wishing more than ever that he could shed his facade.

      
"I didn't send for any priest. What do you want?" Shane's gaze darted back to the schoolhouse twice before settling again on Luke. "You been over there with the sick folks?"

      
Though the kid was obviously trying to appear tough, Luke heard pain and worry in his voice. "Yes."

      
Shane reached up and gripped the bars so tightly his knuckles turned white. His transformation from tough and aloof to frantic and impassioned occurred within a heartbeat. He pressed his face against the iron bars, pretense crumbling away to reveal stark fear. "Please, tell me about my ma and sister.
Please?"

      
No trace of the tough veneer remained. Naked emotion filled the imploring eyes. Luke hated being the one to tell the boy about his mother, but it had to be done.

      
Who better than the local priest?
Get a grip.

      
"Shane–your name is Shane?" He had to make sure, and at the boy's nod, he continued. "Your mother and sister have both been very ill with smallpox. Jenny is much better now. Dr. Wilson doesn't think she'll even have bad scars."

      
Shane lowered his gaze. Red-gold curls fell across his face, concealing his expression. After a few minutes, he shoved back his hair and cleared his throat to meet Luke's gaze again. "And Ma?"
 

      
"I...I'm sorry."

      
The boy's eyes glittered with unshed tears. "I knew she was gone. I just knew it."

      
This was Luke's cue to lapse into priest mode, but the words wouldn't come. He couldn't mutter a single "it was God's will" or anything else the least bit comforting. This epidemic wasn't God's will, dammit. It was hell on earth. Period.

      
"Yes," he finally said. "She died–"

      
"Night before last," Shane finished, a grimace twisting his young face. "A few hours before sunrise."
 
The kid's voice cracked with emotion and he blinked several times.

      
"Someone told you then."
 
Luke breathed a sigh of relief.

      
"Yeah, I guess you could say that."
 
Bitterness honed Shane's voice to a bitter edge. "
She
told me. Nancy Latimer always does–did–everything herself. Absolutely everything. She never asked anybody for a blessed thing."

      
One lone tear trickled down Shane's face, but he swiped it away, then turned his back on Luke and stalked across the dirt floor. "Thanks for telling me," he muttered.

      
Luke stared helplessly at the young man's back. The shoulders were slumped, but they didn't shake with weeping, nor did Shane make a single sound to reveal his anguish. The kid suffered in silence, and with dignity.

      
After a moment, Luke drew a deep breath and dropped his hands to his sides. "Your mother must've been one helluva woman to raise fine kids like you and Jenny."
 

      
Shane turned slowly to face the window again. He opened his mouth as if to speak, then snapped it shut and nodded. "She...she was," he finally whispered.

      
"If you want to talk, send someone to the schoolhouse for me."
 

      
"Wait. Tell my sister..."
 
Shane approached the window again.
 

      
"Yes?" Luke waited. The tension in the air was so thick he could almost hear it, and he couldn't help remembering almost exactly the same words coming from his lips moments before his trip to the chair.
"Tell my grandma..."

      
"I can't raise Jenny like I promised Ma I would if anything ever...happened to her."
 
Another tear slid down Shane's cheek. "I won't be here to do it."

      
That did it. Even when Luke had faced execution over a century in the future, there hadn't been a child depending on him. He'd left no one except a bitter old grandmother who'd written him off years ago. Hardened criminal or not, Luke's heart broke.

      
"Mrs. Fleming plans to raise Jenny," Luke said, wanting to ease the boy's mind.

      
"I'll
raise Jenny," a man called from the middle of the street.

      
Luke whirled around to find the owner of the voice. A man sat on horseback, his face partially covered by a bandanna.
 

      
A roar erupted from the jail cell. Shane's fist shot between the bars, reaching toward the rider. "You stay away from Jenny," the boy shouted. "Stay away!"

      
"That bald-headed priest ain't gonna help you, boy. You're as good as dead already."
 
The rider tilted his head back and laughed, a wicked, penetrating sound that made Luke shudder.

      
"Stay away from her!"

      
Luke knew with absolute certainty that if Shane could have reached the man, he would kill him with his bare hands. From the information Luke had overheard this morning, he realized the man on horseback was none other than the notorious Frank Latimer.

      
"Sure hope you've had smallpox," Luke said casually, facing the newcomer. "If not, you're pretty stupid to ride into town this way."

      
The man looked down the street, then narrowed his gaze on Luke. "Got the inoculation this morning."
 
He pulled the bandanna up higher over the bridge of his nose.

      
So Frank Latimer thought that piece of cloth would protect him from smallpox. Luke shook his head.
 

      
"I hope you
do
get smallpox," Shane said, letting his hand fall limply outside the cell window. "I want you to
suffer
before you burn in hell."

      
The man laughed again, but he sounded nervous even to Luke. "I'll be back for the hangin'. Wouldn't miss that for nothin'."
 
A moment later, Frank Latimer turned his horse and dug his heels into the animal's sides, leaving Redemption and its epidemic behind.
 

      
"Don't let him get Jenny."
 
The urgency in Shane's voice made Luke wary. Very wary.

      
"Mrs. Fleming will raise Jenny," Luke vowed.

      
And prayed this was one promise he could keep.