“Please don’t be mad at me, James Never Jim Shock. Please!”
“Answer me, girl.”
“I had to get away. I couldn’t stay any longer. You’ll let me come with you, won’t you? I’ll do anything you say…”
“How did you get in there? The doors were locked.”
“No, they weren’t. I slipped out of the house and into the barn while it was still dark and the doors weren’t locked, and I found a place to hide…”
Damnation! I must have neglected to lock them when I brought out my banjo last night. Fury rose, hot and thick, in my chest and throat. Everything proceeding so well, and then the downed tree across the road and now this stupid priss of a girl. I wheeled away and stomped ahead to look at the sycamore. Blocking the road for fair, and a thick-trunked bugger it was. It would take a crew of men with axes and saws to cut it up and clear away the debris. The fury rose higher; my head commenced to throb with it, my hands to palsy some.
Annabelle had come out of the wagon and was standing, small and fearful, next to Nell. And fearful she should be, the little bitch. As if the blocked road wasn’t enough of a trial, now I had this rattlebrain to contend with.
“You won’t send me back?” she said. “Please say you won’t send me back.”
Send her back? Hell, no, I wouldn’t. It was only a mile or so to the roadhouse, a short and easy walk, but once she arrived, there was no telling what she might say or the Murdocks might think. She may already have been missed. They might believe I’d enticed her away or, worse, kidnapped her. It was a risk I couldn’t afford to take.
“James Never Jim Shock? Say you…”
“Don’t call me that, you little bitch. Shut your damn’ mouth and let me think.”
A stifled gasp, and she was still.
Take her with me? I couldn’t do that, either, even if the road were free for passage. She was a tender morsel, right enough, but under the age of legal consent. If I were caught with her, it would mean prison.
Turn the wagon around, drive it back to the crossing, take the ferry to Middle Island and points south? That was the logical choice, except for the $3,000. The money might already have been discovered missing, or the discovery made before I could make the crossing. Murdock, Dell, Nesbitt-a damned lawman, I was sure of it-and all of them armed. No, returning to the roadhouse was a fool’s choice.
Nell. Unhitch her, ride her bareback over the obstruction, and into River Bend where I could secure better transportation. But she was old, slow, and anything but sure-footed, and the sycamore would have to be jumped rather than stepped across. And abandoning the wagon with all my wares and possessions was a galling prospect.
In my mouth was a foul taste, as if I’d been force-fed a plate of cowshit soup. What the bloody hell was I going to do?
“Mister Shock?” Timid now. I’d almost forgotten she was there.
“Didn’t I tell you to keep your lip buttoned?”
“Are you going to send me back?”
“If you take me with you,” she said, “I’ll tell you how we can go on.”
“Go on? With this blasted tree blocking the road?”
“There’s a way around, another road that intersects with this one about a mile farther south.”
“What road? You mean the one we passed a ways back?”
“Yes. It leads out to Crucifixion River.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s…a kind of ghost camp.”
“Nobody lives there?”
“Nobody.”
“And the side road continues through it and back to the south of here?”
“No. There’s another road in the camp, a track the people who lived there used.”
“Easy to spot, this track?”
“It’s overgrown. But I know where it is…I can show you.”
“You’re not lying to me?”
“No! I swear it.”
I stared at her, long and hard. Her blue eyes were guileless. Some of my rage began to ease and I let the coattail fall closed. Her death sentence had been reprieved-for however long it took us to reach Crucifixion River.
Caroline Devane
Rachel was standing at Mr. Hoover’s bedside when I went in to check on him. From her expression it was plain that she was upset and trying to hide it, but the reason was not her lover’s condition. He was conscious, although not fully alert, and his color was good and his eyes clear. And his pulse, when I checked it, was strong.
The dressing on his wound needed changing. I removed the old one and was relieved to find no sign of infection. He would be all right until the doctor came from River Bend, and eventually, I thought, he would mend good as new. I put on more sulphur powder and a fresh bandage. His grimace prompted me to ask if he was in pain.
“Some,” he said weakly, “but it’s tolerable.”
I gave him a spoonful of laudanum anyway, to help him sleep. He needed to rebuild his strength, and rest was the best remedy.
When I was done, Rachel squeezed his hand and whispered something to him that I deliberately did not listen to. Then she plucked at my sleeve and gestured toward the door. Whatever was upsetting her, she didn’t wish to discuss it in front of Hoover. As soon as we were in the hallway, with the door closed, she said: “It’s gone, Caroline.”
“What is?”
“The money. The three thousand dollars I took from my husband’s safe. Joe had it in his belt pouch and now the pouch is empty.”
I vaguely remembered seeing the pouch when Mr. Murdock and I had taken off Joe Hoover’s jacket and shirt, but in my urgent need to extract the bullet and clean and dress the wound, I’d thought no more about it. “When did you learn this?”
“A few minutes ago, just before he woke up.”
“Perhaps the Murdocks removed it for safekeeping.”
“I don’t think so. They’d have said something to me.”
Yes, they would have. In the chaotic aftermath of Luke Kraft’s sudden intrusion, I had forgotten his mention of the $3,000 and I suspected the Murdocks and the others had as well. All except one… and there was only one person among us that could be.
Rachel realized it at the same time. “James Shock,” she said. “He took it last night.”
Of course. Shock had slipped into the room, late, and talked her into leaving him there alone. Out of the goodness of his heart? Hardly. He was a cold-blooded opportunist, perfectly capable of taking note of the rancher’s words and Hoover’s belt pouch, and conniving to steal the money.
“Yes,” I said, “but it’s too late to confront him. Mister Murdock told me he drove off early to summon the doctor from River Bend.”
“The money’s gone for good, then. He won’t stop in River Bend.”
“Mister Murdock and Mister Nesbitt might be able to catch him on horseback…”
“Why should they bother? It’s not their place.”
Footsteps, coming quickly from the family’s quarters. Sophie Murdock appeared, her mouth set in grim
