same thing then-no more running and hiding, for either of us. There was no point in trying to argue with her when her mind was made up. Whatever happened with Nesbitt, we would face it together.
Eight years. Eight long, difficult years. We’d sought to convince ourselves that after so much time, this day might never come. And yet we’d never quite believed it. Patrick Bellright was a relentless, bitter, vengeful man with unlimited funds; he would never stop hunting me until his dying day. There would be a reward on my head, a large one, and it would carry no stipulations or caveats. Wanted-dead or alive.
It was a monstrous miscarriage of justice, the result of an accident that was not my fault, that I could not have avoided. A Sunday afternoon drive through Jackson Park in a rented carriage, a small child chasing a ball out of a line of shrubs and yelling loudly enough to frighten the horse. Thrashing hoofs, a scream, a crushed form sprawled in the roadway. We had rushed the child to the nearest doctor, even though Sophie and I were sure there was no life left in her. Marissa Bellright. Seven years old, and Patrick Bellright’s only child.
The rest was nightmare. Dire threats, a murderous assault by one of his hirelings that I’d barely escaped. And then flight, again by bare escape, and arduous travel across country to this isolated backwater and a new, hardscrabble life as ferrymaster and innkeeper-labors as far removed from my former position as newspaper reporter and columnist as Chicago was from Twelve-Mile Crossing.
I had been a fool to submit my sketches for publication in San Francisco. Yet of all the possible ways I might be found by Bellright’s hirelings, my pseudonymous writings had seemed the most remote. There was no way I could have anticipated a man like Nesbitt, whoever he was, making the connection between Harold P. Baxter and T.J. Murdock. But it had happened, and now it was too late. For me, but not, I vowed, for Annabelle or Sophie.
The dawn light was brightening. Sophie and I both rose, washed up, and dressed. She went to the kitchen to make coffee and get breakfast started, and I went to check on Hoover again. Mrs. Devane and Rachel Kraft were both with him now; the two women seemed to have developed a comradeship. There was no change in Hoover’s condition.
Nesbitt was alone in the common room, stoking up the fire as he must have done throughout the night because the room was still warm. There was no sign of the peddler, Shock. As I crossed to the front door, Nesbitt stood up.
“We need to have a talk, Murdock,” he said.
“Yes, but not right this second. I have work to attend to.”
“Soon, though.”
“I’ll be around,” I said. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“I didn’t suppose you were.”
Outside, the yard was rain-puddled and littered with leaves and branches. The levee roads on both sides of the slough seemed to have survived intact, so far as I could see, although down toward where the slough bent to the south, the water level was only a couple of feet below the surface of the Middle Island road. Both embankments appeared to have held without crumbling. The slough waters were chocolate brown, frothy, still running fast and bobbing with tree limbs and other detritus from the storm.
I slogged through the mud to the landing. The barge was as I’d left it, moored fast, and the strung cable and windlass had come through undamaged. As I finished my examination, Pete Dell appeared from the direction of the barn. I went to meet him.
“How’s she look out there, Murdock?”
“It should be safe enough for the stage to cross in another couple of hours.”
“Good enough. I’m so far behind schedule now, couple more hours won’t make any difference. Some wild night, eh?”
“In more ways than one.”
“That peddler, Shock, is over in the barn hitching up his wagon.”
“Already? He must be eager for an early start to River Bend.”
“So he says. I don’t much like that fella, tell you the truth.”
“I would have said the same before he put an end to Luke Kraft’s terrorism last night.”
“Even so. But then, I never much liked Kraft, neither. His death’s likely to cause a stir up Isleton way, even if he did deserve what he got.” Pete stretched and blew on his hands. “Coffee ready?”
“Should be. Breakfast, too, just about.”
We went on into the house. Two hours, I was thinking bleakly, and part of another for the stage to cross. And then Nesbitt. And then, one way or another, an end to my freedom.
James Shock
I finished harnessing Nell to my wagon, hauled the Murdocks’ buckboard to one side of the runway, opened the doors, and led Nell out of the barn. Bitter cold this morning, but I scarcely felt the bite. The $3,000, nestled inside my coat, provided warmth aplenty.
As I drove across the muddy yard, the ferrymaster stepped out of the roadhouse and hailed me. I drew to a stop, arranging my face in an expression of gravity. “I was about to stop in,” I lied, “to ask after Mister Hoover.”
“He’s awake and taking nourishment. He passed a comfortable night.”
“Well, he’ll soon enough have the attention of a doctor.”
“Good of you to make the trip to River Bend, Mister Shock.”
“Not at all. I know my duty.”
“Will you have breakfast before you go? Or at least a cup of hot coffee?”
“Thank you, no. I’ve no real appetite this morning, and I’d just as lief make tracks while the weather is dry. How much do I owe for the night’s lodging?”
“Not a cent, under the circumstances.”
“Christian of you, brother, but I insist on paying for your hospitality.”
“As you please. Two dollars, then.”
I leaned down to pay him. He thanked me and wished me Godspeed, and I touched my hat and gigged Nell up the muddy embankment. The wagon’s wheels slipped a bit, but the old plug held her footing and soon enough we were on the levee road, headed in the direction of River Bend. I cast no backward glance.
Even if the money were missed, no one at the ferry crossing could be sure that I’d taken it; not even Nesbitt, if he was a lawman, would have cause or impetus to chase after me. I had only to pass through River Bend and I was safe. Sheriff, doctor? Hah! I wouldn’t tarry in the town long enough to wave at a passer-by. Straight on through and back to Sacramento as quickly as I could get there.
I felt a song welling up in me and began to hum and then to sing softly. Later, when the day warmed a bit, I would bring out my banjo to celebrate properly my good fortune. $3,000, more than I’d ever had at one time. What a man could do with that much money! Why, I might just board Nell in a livery, put the wagon in storage, and take passage on one of the river packets to San Francisco. Yes, that was just what I’d do. A room in the city’s best hotel, fine food, champagne, a pretty lass for company and bed. Heigh-ho! Life’s bounties in abundance.
After a mile or so I passed a weed-infested side road that meandered off onto a long peninsula. Ahead was a sharp bend, both sides of the levee road shaded by sycamores. The road’s surface was less slick here and we were clomping along at a right pert pace when we reached the bend and started through.
I didn’t spy the downed tree until we were almost upon it. It lay blocking the road from one side to the other, its root-torn bole jutting high and its upper branches drooping down into the slough. I yanked back hard on the reins. Nell shied and the wagon slewed sideways, and, when that happened, just before we slid to a halt a few feet from the sycamore, something shifted and clattered inside. I could scarcely believe what I heard then-the startled, pained cry of a woman.
I set the brake, jumped down, ran to the rear of the wagon, and pulled open the doors. And lo, there she was, asprawl on the floor among a small litter of items dislodged from their hooks and cubbies, the hem of her traveling dress twisted up to reveal her drawers.
Annabelle Murdock.
“What the devil are you doing in my wagon?”
