Brighter than Gold (Western Rebels Book 1) (46 page)

“He couldn’t be better. He’s working hard at the
Gazette,
putting it out all by himself with a little help from Owly Shaw, even though there’s hardly anyone to buy it. Have you seen him since Christmas? I’d wager that he’s put on another five pounds.” Her smile widened, and she patted her own belly. “And so have I. We’re going to have a baby late this summer.”

“Abby, that’s wonderful news! Please convey my congratulations to the proud father.” Sam took a bite of potato. “Won’t Katie and Jack be pleased!”

“Oh, Sam, just the sound of their names brings tears to my eyes.... I pray every day that Katie will find happiness with Jack. The last letter we received, around Christmas, was full of news, but it didn’t really say one way or the other how she felt. That’s not like Katie, and I just had a notion that something might be wrong underneath all her talk about new gowns and parties and how grand San Francisco is.”

“Jack had better be good to her,” Lim put in. “If Katie isn’t happy when I get there, he’ll have me to deal with!”

“Well, of course, I don’t know any more than you do,” Sam said, “but I just have a feeling that it’s all right. All the ingredients were there for a very loving marriage.”

Abby looked reassured. “Yes, you’re right, of course. That makes me feel a little better. Lim, pour Samuel a beer. On the house!”

“Ah!” boomed a voice from the doorway. “Is that chicken pie I smell?”

Sam looked around to see Aaron Rush lumbering across the saloon. His cheeks were pinker than usual from the cold, and he wore a topcoat with a fur collar over his brown suit and waistcoat.

As Abby scurried off to fill a plate and Lim poured the drinks, Rush heaved himself onto the stool next to Sam’s. Suddenly Sam’s palms felt damp.

“Hello, Mr. Rush,” he said.

The older man appeared to be in a jovial mood. “Hello, Clemens! Ah, I’ve been looking forward to this chicken pie all morning. As you can see, I’ve been wasting away since my dear wife journeyed to New York. I need to put on a bit of fat to keep my bones warm!” Rush opened his coat to reveal a considerably thinner body and shook his head ruefully. As Abby set the plate before him, he looked at her. “Not too much salt, I hope? You know I don’t care for salty food.”

Abby’s eyes widened apprehensively. “No, sir. I don’t think so, sir.”

Rush took up a healthy forkful and tasted it. “Well, it’s not quite up to Ellen’s standard, but it will suffice,” he pronounced a moment later. “Next time, Abby, you must cut the carrots and potatoes into bigger pieces, and add a bit more pepper. All right?”

“Yes, Mr. Rush.” Nodding to Sam, she disappeared into the kitchen.

Sam could think of nothing that appealed to him less than a conversation with Aaron Rush, but he had his orders, and Jack had been very specific. First, he mentioned casually that he had seen one of the drivers of the stage to Stockton during a layover in Angel’s Camp a few days earlier. Rush’s ears pricked up.

“Charlie gave me a few newspapers,” Sam said, beginning to warm to his role, “and from the looks of things, the war will be over before long. General Sherman’s on his way to connect with Grant, and instead of going by sea, he’s raiding his way through the Carolinas. The Confederacy’s barely breathing, it seems to me.”

“You’re forgetting General Lee’s army,” Rush said between bites of chicken pie and swigs of whiskey-laced tea. “That’s one very important arm of the Confederacy that’s still alive. The war can’t be won until Lee is beaten. But let me ask you—”

Knowing that Rush was eager to learn more about his supposed conversation with the stage driver, Sam interrupted with another argument about the war. He had to admire Jack’s thinking. There was no possibility that Aaron Rush would suspect he was being set up for a trap. Finally, as they started on pieces of pumpkin pie, Sam let the older man get a word in.

Rush was the essence of nonchalance as he remarked, “Sounds as if you and Charlie had quite a lengthy conversation. Did he have anything else worthwhile to say?”

Sam shrugged. “Well, he did mention that he was going to pick up two wealthy businessmen when he returned to Stockton. They’re coming up here with a fortune in gold, thinking to take over the mi—” He looked shocked at his own slip. “I mean, the
bank,
as I recall.”

Rush’s face reddened with concern. “Are you sure that was what you were going to say?”

“I just stumbled over my own tongue,” Sam assured him unconvincingly. “Too much beer, I reckon. Well...” He got to his feet. “I’d better be on my way. I have to get back to the cabin and wash out my socks. Nice seeing you, Mr. Rush. Good luck!” With that, Clemens bade Lim and Abby farewell, put three times more than he owed on the bar, and sauntered out into the afternoon sunshine.

* * *

As the stagecoach climbed the oak-and-pine-studded hills east of Angel’s Camp, Katie perused her new copy of
Godey’s Lady’s Book.
Her mind, however, was not on the embroidery pattern detailed on the page before her.

Conrad squirmed restlessly on the seat opposite her. The other passengers had disembarked at Angel’s Camp except for one fat young man whose head kept bouncing backward as he snorted and moaned in his sleep. The closer they got to Columbia, the more nervous Conrad felt.

“I wish you’d let me have that... that
thing,”
he hissed at his sister-in-law.

Katie smiled. “Are you referring to
—this
?” she inquired sweetly, patting the neat little derringer hidden inside her cloak. “No, thank you, Conrad. I’ll keep it with me for the time being.”

“I’m beginning to understand why Jack loses patience with you upon occasion!” he whispered agitatedly. “You are—”

“Stubborn? Headstrong?” She grinned. “Incorrigible, perhaps?”

“Yes!”

“You sound just like your brother.” Katie was enjoying herself immensely. As they drew nearer and nearer to real adventure, her pain over the separation from Jack lessened. She only wished that Conrad were a bit more like his sibling, because it was clear to her that he would never be dashing or courageous enough to carry off the kind of confrontation she anticipated. Sitting across from her now, in a loud rust-and-brown-checked waistcoat that he insisted was the very height of fashion, Conrad looked like a frightened boy. If she were to turn over their weapon to him, he would probably shoot himself by accident. “Don’t be so fretful, Con,” Katie soothed. “Nothing is going to happen yet.”

“Then why won’t you give that thing to me?”

“Because if anything
does
happen... and you know what I mean”—she glanced at their snoring companion—“I must be the one to act. That person who shall remain nameless is my enemy, not yours.”

“Oh, God, I wish we’d never come! I must have been mad to ever consider this escapade! Jack would murder me if he knew what we were doing! I should have insisted that we remain in San Francisco—”

“In that instance I probably would have come alone, so you can absolve yourself of blame.”

He sighed in exasperation and looked out the window. They were ascending a particularly steep hill overlooking the Stanislaus River, and he began to feel queasy. The stagecoach was traveling perilously close to the edge of a cliff that plummeted hundreds of feet to the water below. If a wheel were to come loose...

“Oh, my, isn’t it beautiful?” Katie exclaimed, leaning out the window for a better view. “I hadn’t realized how much I missed this country.”

“I think a more appropriate adjective would be ‘terrifying,’” Conrad replied in a tight voice.

Katie glanced at him. “You know, I think you’re getting old before your time. Where is your spirit of adventure?”

They were slowing down for a blind curve, and as they rounded it, a man’s voice rang out.

“Halt, sir!”

Katie and Conrad scrambled to look out the other window. There, standing in front of a grove of scrub oak trees, was a man wearing a long linen duster and a hood with holes cut out for his eyes... and carrying a double-barreled shotgun. “Kindly throw down your box!” the man cried. “And I’ll have a look at those passengers, too. I hear there is a pair on board from Stockton.”

Katie knew a pang of disappointment. The Griffin was neither as tall nor as well built as she had imagined, and his voice was not as thrilling as people had said. Obviously he had been romanticized like so many other folk heroes. She reached inside her cloak for her derringer, while Conrad looked on in horror.

Suddenly another figure jumped down from a clump of bushes on a ledge above. The Griffin started to turn, but it was too late. A shotgun barrel was shoved into his back.

“I don’t appreciate being impersonated by such a pale imitation,” the other man said in a deep voice. “Remove your hood, sir.”

Katie and Conrad watched, their mouths open. The man who claimed to be the real Griffin was dressed in an identical duster and hood, and he was tall and strong-looking, like the Griffin of legend.

Aaron Rush knew that if he unmasked, his life would be over, one way or another. Seeing no choice, he whirled around and grabbed for the other man’s shotgun, but his reflexes were far too slow. The gun went off in the ensuing struggle, and he sagged to the ground with a hole in his belly.

The stage driver was fumbling for his own rifle, but the other man was quicker. He leveled his shotgun at the driver and said, “There’s no need, sir. I mean you no harm, any more than I intended for this man to die. You see, I am the real Griffin, and I had a score to settle. This impersonator has been sullying my reputation by robbing virtuous townsfolk, and I had to put a stop to that.”

Katie’s heart was pounding madly. This was her chance to avenge her father’s death! Here was his killer, standing before her. Without stopping to think further, she drew out her derringer and threw open the stage door. “And I have a score to settle with you, sir! Throw down your gun!”

The Griffin froze at the sound of her voice, then turned to look at her through the holes cut in his hood. He sighed audibly. “Don’t shoot, Mrs. Wyatt.” His hoarse voice sent chills down Katie’s back. Dropping the shotgun on the ground next to Rush’s body, he slowly drew the hood from his head. “I am your husband.”

Chapter 31

January 31, 1864

“But it can’t be true!” Abby gasped. “If Jack is the Griffin, that means that he... he killed—”

“Papa,” Katie supplied tonelessly.

The two women were gathered with Lim, Gideon, and Conrad in the tiny, makeshift kitchen of the saloon. Katie, who was trembling with shock, sipped tea as she sat on a stool near the cast-iron stove. Her friends were gathered around her, but Conrad paced restlessly. Outside the window, clouds were gathering in the waning light of late afternoon.

“There has to be another explanation,” he cried. “It just doesn’t make sense!”

“It certainly doesn’t,” Abby agreed. “Jack was very fond of Mr. MacKenzie. They were friends!”

“Now let’s calm down and look at the facts,” Gideon said. “Right from the beginning, on the very day that Brian was shot, there was confusion about the circumstances. No one actually saw the Griffin shoot Brian. Van Hosten may have had a gun, or a struggle may have ensued. Whatever the case, I have always believed that Brian’s death was accidental. It went against everything that the Griffin had stood for up to that moment. He had always striven for justice and he’d never fired a shot. I’m sure it was no coincidence that the first blood was shed when Harold Van Hosten was present. It’s always been my belief that he was the cause not only of Brian’s death, but of his own.”

“But if Jack hadn’t attacked the stage...” Katie heard her own voice from a distance. So much had happened in such a short space of time, she was barely able to take it all in. Her husband, whom she loved deeply, was in jail. And not only was he responsible for the death of her adored father, but he had lied to her. He had married her knowing that he was also the man she despised more than anyone else in the world. “He should have told me,” Katie whispered now. “He married me with blood on his hands.”

Conrad spoke up as if he hadn’t heard her. “Everything makes sense now! Jack became the Griffin to avenge
me!
He wasn’t going to Nevada at all. He was coming up here in search of justice—”

“And he found a new life,” Gideon said.

Lim pulled a chair up next to Katie and patted her hand. “How did you feel about Jack before today?”