Dead Before Sundown

He hadn’t built a fire because he didn’t want anybody seeing it. Somebody was out here in this wilderness who didn’t care about that. Stevens? Morgan? Both of them?

No, Palmer decided. The light breeze that carried the scent of smoke to him came out of the east. It was possible that someone trailing him could have gotten past him without any of them knowing about it, but he thought it was unlikely. He had been moving pretty fast.

That meant somebody else was ahead of him. No telling who it might be. Another trapper, maybe. Some travelers on their way through the mountains. It could be anybody, Palmer told himself. He had no reason to think they were a threat to him.

But he didn’t know, and that bothered him. He got to his feet and picked up his rifle. The idea of traipsing around on the side of a mountain in the darkness wasn’t very appealing to him, but he liked the idea of being surprised by enemies even less.

He was a city boy and didn’t like this wilderness, but he had been around it enough that he was confident he could find his way back to the camp. He left the horses tied up where they were and started making his way through the shadows, following the scent of wood smoke that still drifted through the night.

“The fire is already too big, Joseph,” Charlotte Marat said as she stood with her arms crossed, glaring impatiently at her brother. “Someone will see it.”

Joseph tossed another branch onto the flames and shrugged. “Who is out here to see it, other than our friends?”

“We don’t know who is out here,” Charlotte insisted. “That is the whole point of being careful.”

Joseph sighed. It was easier to humor Charlotte than to argue with her, much easier. He knew that. Sometimes he had to remind himself of that fact, however.

“We’ll let the fire burn down,” he said. “I wanted some hot food tonight. All this running and hiding and living like animals … it gets wearisome, Charlotte.”

Her expression softened, and when it did, some of the beauty that hardship had drained out of her returned, if only momentarily.

“Of course it does,” she said. “I’m sorry, Joseph. But we must stay alive and free if our cause is to have any chance of succeeding.”

She sat down on a slab of rock on the other side of the fire. The light from the flames painted her face with red shadows.

Joseph Marat was aware that his sister was a beautiful woman. She should have been in an elegantly appointed drawing room somewhere, wearing a fine gown, instead of hunkered in a forest clearing in boots, denim trousers, and a flannel shirt. Her thick, dark brown hair should have been piled on her head in an elaborate arrangement of curls instead of drawn back and tied behind her head so that she could tuck it more easily under her hat when she was riding.

But neither of them had asked for their fate. The Indian blood that mingled in their veins with the French meant that they would always be half-breeds, pitiful creatures to be scorned and looked down upon, despite the fact that both of them were more intelligent and better educated than the English and the Scots who had driven their people out of their homeland.

Joseph took the skillet from the fire, divided the beans and bacon in it among the two of them. His rifle was close at hand, and even while he was heating the food, he had paid close attention to the woods around them.

What he had told Charlotte was true, as far as it went. They had no enemies out here that he knew of.

But it was what a man didn’t know that often wound up killing him, Joseph reflected. Charlotte was absolutely right. He shouldn’t have built such a big fire.

The objection she had raised didn’t keep her from eating eagerly. They washed the food down with sips of hot coffee. After a while, Charlotte said, “How much longer do you think we’ll have to wait?”

Joseph shook his head. “I don’t know. Duryea wasn’t sure when the guns would arrive. Sometime this month.”

“We’ve been waiting for a week already.”

“I know. We’ll wait another week if we have to. However long it takes.”

Joseph’s tone was a little sharper than he’d intended. He saw the flash of hurt in his sister’s eyes and wanted to apologize to her. He suppressed the impulse.

A man who was tough enough to lead a revolution didn’t start saying he was sorry every time his bossy little sister got her feelings hurt.

A little noise in the brush caught Joseph’s attention. A small animal might have caused it … but it might be something else, too.

Moving casually so as not to alarm anyone who was watching, he reached over and put his hand on his rifle. Charlotte noticed the movement, and her eyes narrowed. Joseph knew she was about to ask him if something was wrong. To forestall that, he stood up and said, “I think I’ll take a little walk.”

“Why?” she asked.

“I don’t demand explanations from you when you have personal business to conduct, do I?”

Her face turned even redder in the firelight. He felt bad about embarrassing her, but better a little embarrassment than tipping off a possible enemy that he was aware of them lurking near the camp.

He tucked the rifle under his arm as if he didn’t have a care in the world, then stepped out of the circle of light cast by the campfire. Instead of heading toward the sound he had heard, he moved off in another direction.

As soon as the thick shadows underneath the trees had enfolded him, he turned and shifted the rifle so that it was in his hands, ready to fire. He began working his way around the camp.