Colorado Dawn (35 page)

But Ash heard the echo of his own worry in the sheriff’s voice. “That poor lad would do anything his brother told him to do. He’s terrified of him, and rightly so.”

While Brodie secured the stable doors, Ash looked around. Already evening shadows were closing in. The wind had picked up. The rush of it through the tall pines surrounding the house would easily mask sound, and the brush along the back of the house could provide ample cover for a man. Or two. He would have to be extra watchful through the night.

Falling into step with the sheriff, he reached down to pat the wolfhound’s head. “I’ll see if Mrs. Kemble will allow Tricks to roam the house tonight.”

Thomas lay on his back where he had fallen, the pain in his back so hot and consuming it stole away his breath. The whole front side of his torso was numb.

“Oh dear, oh dear.” The reverend knelt at his side and started pressing against his ribs where the bullet had exited. Thomas arched, a cry rising in his throat.

“Can you move, Mr. Redstone?”

Thomas struggled to roll over and escape the searing pain in his back. He flopped facedown, his cheek falling against dirt that was warm and wet with his blood. Dimly he became aware—more as a vibration than a sound—of approaching horses.

“Taaseste…taanaasestse…”

The reverend’s face appeared in his dimming vision. “What? What are you saying? How can I help you?”

“Go…now…”

“No, I won’t leave you.”

Thomas struggled to find the words, to evade the blackness that pressed against his eyes. “Tell them…I am dead…say…you have papers…”

“What papers? The claim papers?”

“Yes…” The drumming hoofbeats drew closer. Thomas fought to keep his eyes open. “Stay alive…I will come.”

“God be with you, Thomas Redstone.”

Darkness closed around him. Beyond it, voices rose in shouts—the reverend asking why they had killed his friend—horses milling close by. Thomas slowed his breathing and hoped the men who shot him did not know that dead men did not bleed.

After a while, the noise went away and only the pain remained.

He opened his eyes.

Dusk had fallen. The forest was silent and still. He smelled blood and felt the warm stickiness of it soaking the dirt.

He must move. He must not be here if they came back.

With a groan, he staggered to his feet, then stood shivering with cold even though tongues of fire licked at his back and his side.

There was no sign of the reverend or his pony.

Seeing blood seep from a hole in his shirt, he pressed a hand over it and gasped at the searing pain. When it faded enough that he could breathe again, he lifted his face to the darkening sky.

“Help me…
nehvestahmestse
,
ma’heone.
”

The wind swirled softly around him, then swept up the steep bank above him. Heeding the voices of his spirit guides, Thomas turned and climbed slowly away from the trail and up into the trees.

Nineteen

T
he intruder came after supper, when the diners, including Mrs. Kemble, had retired to the front parlor to hear Edwina Brodie play the piano blindfolded. It was a dare laughingly issued by Miss Hathaway and heartily accepted by Edwina after her own husband pronounced the idea “bunkum.”

A private joke, Ash decided, amused by the heated glances passing between the sheriff and his wife. He looked at Maddie, seated beside him, wondering if she had noticed. She was smiling as she watched them, but it was such a sad, wistful smile, he felt a tug deep inside his chest.

His Maddie. His wife. But would she ever be completely his own? For all her passion and tender words, he sensed there was a small part of herself she wouldn’t share with him. And he dinna know why.

Laughter across the room drew his attention, and he looked over to see Miss Hathaway tying a length of cloth over Edwina Brodie’s eyes.

That was when Tricks, roused from his nap beside Ash’s chair, lifted his head and stared intently at the window.

Ash followed his gaze. He knew the window overlooked the
backyard and stable, but all he saw was lamplight reflected in the glass panes.

He studied the dog.

Tricks showed no agitation, only curiosity.

A wandering cat, perhaps. Or a rider passing by on the road.

Resting his hand on the wolfhound’s head, he murmured softly to him in Gaelic. When Tricks took no notice and his dark gaze remained fixed on the window, Ash caught Brodie’s eye and gave a slight nod.

Without stirring from his slouched position, Ash leaned over and whispered into Maddie’s ear, “Have I mentioned today, lass, how much I love you?”

“W-What?”

“I love you.”

She reared back to blink at him. “
Now
, Ash?” As if startled by the loudness of her blurted response, she glanced around to see if anyone else had heard, then lowered her voice. “You finally get around to saying it and you do it
here
? In front of all these people?”

“I’ve told you many times, lass, so I have.”

“You most certainly have not. I would have remembered.”

Reaching over, he gently cupped her cheek. His hand looked big and clumsy and battered against the pale perfection of her skin. “Sweet Maddie,” he said softly.
“A ghra mo chroi.”

“What?”

“Tha gaol mor agam ort.”

“I don’t speak Gaelic. What does that mean?”

He kissed her lightly. “I’ll tell you later, love. Or, better yet, I’ll show you.” He kissed her again, then straightened in the chair. “But right now, Tricks needs to go out.” Gratified by her look of consternation, he rose and left the room. As he and Tricks moved down the hall toward the kitchen, he heard the sheriff ask if anyone wanted more coffee.

A moment later, as Ash was tying a lead rope around the wolfhound’s neck, Brodie came through the kitchen doorway. “What’s wrong?” the sheriff asked.

“I’m not sure. But the lad senses something is amiss.” Pulling his pistol from his coat on a hook beside the door, Ash checked the load, snapped the chamber closed, and pushed the gun into the waistband of his trousers. “If I’m not back in ten minutes,” he instructed as he donned his coat, “come seek me.” After closing the door behind him, he paused on the porch long enough for his eyes to adjust, then stepped into the yard.

Ash had excellent vision at night, but even without it, the near full moon rising over the mountains in the east cast enough light through the trees to light his way.

Tricks led him toward the barn, tugging against the rope in a determined way, but showing no intent to give chase. He stopped before the double doors, sniffed at the ground, then at the slide bar.

Ash saw that the doors were ajar—not the way he and Brodie had left them earlier. Gripping his pistol in one hand and Tricks’s rope in the other, he shouldered the door open and peered inside.

Silence. The smell of sweet feed and alfalfa and horses. Moonlight illuminating the inside walkway with a pale glow.

Nothing moved. He listened but heard only the sounds of horses resting quietly in their stalls. A long, dark head peered over one of the half doors—Brodie’s big gelding—but he showed no alarm.

Ash let go of the rope.

Tricks moved quickly past the stalls, nose to the ground. Stopping outside the tack and feed room, he cocked his head and listened, then lifted a paw and pushed against the door.

It swung open and he went inside.

A voice, then a laugh Ash recognized. Shoving the pistol back into his waistband, he stepped forward and looked into the room.

Pale strips of moonlight shining through the slats of the exterior wall fell across a figure huddled in a corner, laughing as Tricks licked his dirty face. Ash let out a breath. “Hello, Silas,” he said.

The lad almost jumped out a foot off the ground. By the time he recovered from his fright and Ash had gotten the lantern lit, Brodie had arrived, which scared the lad all over again. They had just gotten
him calmed down a second time when the ladies burst in, this time startling Ash so badly he almost drew his pistol.

“Aha!” Edwina Brodie crowed from the doorway, hands on hips. “Didn’t I tell you something was going on, ladies? Didn’t I?”

Miss Hathaway and Maddie appeared at Edwina’s shoulder, gawking like deer caught in a sudden flare of light.

“Christamighty, Ed!” Holstering his own pistol, Brodie dragged a hand across his face. “Don’t you know not to come sneaking around in the middle of the night?”

“Don’t you?” she countered. “And just what are you two doing out here—oh my goodness! Is that Silas?”

“Mercy, he’s been hurt!”

“Oh, you poor dear!”

Like a stampede of unschooled horses, the three women rushed into the small room, all talking at once and stirring up dust and such a ruckus Ash had to resort to drill commands to reestablish order.

“There’s no need to shout, dearest. You’re frightening Silas.”

“What happened?” Miss Hathaway demanded, gently wiping dirt from the boy’s bruised face.

“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Ash snapped, which earned him another chiding look from his wife.

“Is this it?” Brodie made a show of looking around. “Is anyone else coming? Because I don’t want to have to go through this again.”

His wife patted his arm. “Everyone else has retired. Now stop fussing and tell us what’s going on.”

“Ask him.”

They all turned and looked expectantly at Silas.

It took a while, but once the lad was convinced he wasn’t in trouble and no one was going to hurt him, he finally blurted out the sorry tale. Ash followed as best he could, mentally filling in the omitted details.

He wasn’t really Silas Zucker, the lad tearfully admitted, but Silas Cochran, and his brother was Cletus Cochran, but he was pretending to be another man—
Reverend Zucker
—because he wanted the smiling man’s—
Ephraim Zucker’s—
gold. But the picture
lady—
Maddie
—didn’t know where the smiling man’s cabin was, and Clete was mad because of what Silas did—
which he wouldn’t talk about
—so his brother got Bud Purvis to help him, who was even meaner than Clete and had a tarantula, and they made Si promise to keep watch over the picture lady until they got back.

“Got back from where?” Ash asked.

“I don’t know.”

Luckily, Brodie intervened before Ash started shaking the lad. “Could they have gone to the cabin?”

“I don’t know. I think they were following the fat man and the Indian, but I’m not sure. I’m hungry. Do you have any food?”

“Sure.” Brodie sent Miss Hathaway to get something from the kitchen, then asked Maddie if it would be all right if Si slept in her wagon.

Maddie looked at the filthy lad, then backed up a step. “Perhaps if you bathed him first.”

“Maybe tomorrow. For now, let’s just make a bed for him out here. Ash, get your bedroll.”

Ash had seen the lad scratching, too, and was as wary as his wife. “I’d rather you get yours.”

In the end, Maddie suggested he use Mr. Satterwhite’s bedroll, which was still in the storage box attached to the underside of the wagon. After she and Edwina went to get it, Ash turned to Brodie. “I’m leaving for the cabin.”

“Now?”

“There’s a near full moon.”

“You don’t even know where it is.”

“Out toward Blue River. We crossed that road coming in. And Thomas described the bluff by the cabin well enough. Besides, I’ll have Tricks. Do you have something of Thomas’s I can let him smell?”

Brodie rummaged through a pouch hanging on a hook, then pulled out one of Thomas’s town shirts.

Ash stuffed it into his saddlebag. “You’ll watch Maddie while I’m gone. There’s only you now.”

Brodie looked surprised. “You’re expecting trouble here?”

Ash glanced at Silas, who was happily trading fleas with Tricks, and wondered how much of what the lad had said could be relied upon. “If his brother follows Thomas and the reverend to the cabin and realizes the claim papers aren’t there, where else would he look but here?”

“They’d have to go through Thomas first.”

“Aye. That’s what I’m afraid of.”

Ash was in the center aisle, saddling Lurch when Maddie came back. Sending Edwina on into the feed room with the bedroll, she came toward him. He paused to watch her. She seemed to glow in the slanting moonlight—a wee highland fairy come to life, and so beautiful it brought a catch to his breath.

“You’re going after Thomas,” she said, stopping beside him.

He finished buckling the bridle, then turned to face her, one hand resting on Lurch’s neck. “Aye. He could be riding into an ambush.” If he hadn’t already done so.

“So could you.” Reaching up, she took his face in her soft hands and looked hard into his eyes. “You come back to me, Angus Wallace,” she said fiercely. “I’ll not be parted from you again.”

He drew her tight against his body. If he could, he would have pulled her all the way into his chest to keep her near his heart forever.
“Tha gaol agam ort,”
he whispered into her hair.
I love you.

She drew back, and rising on tiptoe, pressed her lips to his. It was less a show of passion than possession, and he answered it with all the love he held for this fey creature who was his wife. When the kiss ended and she stepped back, her eyes were wet and her smile wobbly. “Guard yourself well, dearest.
Moi aussi, je t’aime.
”

“I dinna speak French. What does that mean?”

“I’ll show you when you get back.”

For the first two hours, Ash and Tricks made good time because the road was well defined and no clouds obscured the moon. But when the track branched off toward Breckenridge, it began to climb sharply and trees often blocked the moonlight. Ash pulled Lurch
back to a walk and tried to curb his impatience. Twice they surprised elk in the road and once chased off a bear that was digging at a rotten stump. Tricks knew better than to give chase, and they moved steadily on. Other than night birds and the distant howl of wolves, the night was quiet except for the rhythmic clomp of Lurch’s shod hooves on the hard-packed dirt.