he wouldn’t alert Billie.
When he got back to the window, O’Reilly was gone.
Gone like a wraith disappearing into the depths of Hell.
CHAPTER 12
A warm ray of sunlight filtered into the cabin through the window. Sometime during the night, Josiah had awoken from his spot on the floor and realized the rain had stopped. The storm was over. The only sounds he could hear were Billie breathing gently and rain dripping off the roof. He’d stirred at daybreak, then pulled himself up off his makeshift bed of clothes and blankets. His leg hurt and he was stiff, but the bleeding had stopped. There didn’t look to be any infection.
Now that it was full on into the morning, with the sun up, the ground was soaked and muddy but navigable.
Josiah had kept himself busy. He tried to be as quiet as he could, stacking a fresh pile of wood by the stove, gathering whatever he thought Billie would need, without his assistance, in the coming days.
A few times he was certain he’d heard Billie and the baby stir in their bed, heard suckling sounds, figured if there was any need for him to invade the girl’s privacy, she would call out for him. She hadn’t.
“What are you doing, Josiah?”
Her voice caught him unaware. Josiah turned his head to see Billie standing in the sunlight, cradling her baby, a certain glow about her that Josiah recognized from his days as a new father. Lily was never more beautiful than right after she’d had a baby.
Billie had combed her long brown hair and let it fall over her shoulders. She had on a fresh yellow dress and was barefoot. Her feet even looked like they were sparkling. Her eyes, nearly the same color as her hair, twinkled, too, and her skin looked healthy and well scrubbed. Somehow, she had managed to clean herself up without Josiah knowing it.
The baby girl was wrapped in a blanket, but Josiah could see her head topped by a full head of hair that was black as coal. A hand reached up out of the blanket, fingers reaching and grabbing for the first time.
He’d been stooped over, straightening the last bit of wood into a proper stack. “Making sure you have everything you need,” he said.
The color drained immediately from Billie’s face.
Josiah stood upright then, still dressed in Charlie’s clothes, and exhaled deeply with resignation. “I think it’s best if I go.”
“You can’t leave in broad daylight.”
“They know I’m here, Billie, I’m sure of it. If they don’t, they will soon. Daylight will be their chance, too. I saw O’Reilly watching the house. My presence is putting you and the baby in danger. It’s hard telling what they’d do to you for helping me.”
Billie walked over to him, her eyes hard and unyielding. The baby gurgled and cooed. “They won’t hurt me.”
“I can’t take that risk.”
“They’ll hunt you down. You think I want to live knowin’ that you died because of me?” Billie said.
“If they kill me, it won’t be because of you. I told you, O’Reilly and I have a history.”
“Looks more like unfinished business to me.”
“I suppose you’re right. Neither of us will rest until one of us is dead. If he found out for certain you gave me food and shelter, he’d take his anger out on you, I’m sure of it.”
Billie turned away from Josiah, tears streaming out of the corners of both her eyes. She was biting the corner of her lip to restrain a full-out cry. The beauty that had previously held her in such grace was now completely gone. She stopped at the door, her back fully to Josiah, and rocked the baby.
“I was hopin’ you’d stay,” Billie said, softly, staring down at the baby. “I knew you’d have to leave sooner or later. But I was hopin’ to have at least a day or two with you here. More really. At least till I got my strength up. I could keep you well hid, Josiah. There’s a root cellar out yonder that ain’t too infested with critters. If the need arises for you to disappear there.”
“It’d be the first place they’d look. I’d have no way out.”
“In the barn, then,” Billie pleaded.
“I’m sorry,” Josiah said. “I don’t think we have a day to spare. The sooner I leave, the better off you and the baby will be.”
Billie turned and faced Josiah. “There’s nothing I can do or say to make you change your mind?”
“No, ma’am, there isn’t.”
He wasn’t sure of her offer, but there was a different look in Billie’s eyes. One he knew, too, and it was not just the glow after having a baby. She was lonely. She missed her husband. She needed a man. But Josiah was not that man . . . and they both knew it. Or, at least, he hoped she knew that was true. He had a life in Austin that was as fragile and new as Billie’s baby. He needed to go home—or at least, try to go home.
Billie said nothing as she let a look devoid of emotion fall over her face. She disappeared back into the room where she’d given birth, back to her marriage bed, back to her loneliness and new responsibilities.
The baby began to cry. After a long minute or so, the baby’s screams and whimpers were matched by Billie’s sobbing, echoing a hunger and need that could not be filled.
Josiah grabbed up the Spencer, peered out the door cautiously, then walked outside into the bright sun, more determined than ever to face Liam O’Reilly one last time.
The horses had obviously weathered the storm, huddling in a lean-to about twenty yards beyond the barn. Josiah didn’t even know the lean-to existed, or that there was any livestock at all on Billie and Charlie’s farm, until he’d set about replenishing the wood for the stove.
At first glance, the little farm had looked to be in serious disrepair, suffering from neglect because of Charlie’s death and the effects of the lingering summer drought that had just been sated by the torrential rains. Now that the sun was out, the air clean, and the wind gone, Josiah could see beyond the neglect.
The degradation and disrepair was a recent occurrence. There were signs that at one time, not so long ago, the farm had been well tended; the fences whitewashed, the barn stalls cleaned regularly, the house well cared for. All of the prideful chores had since gone by the wayside, lost in the depression and reality of death.
A few chickens appeared out of nowhere, happily pecking at the mud, searching out gravel and dirt anywhere they could find it, clucking as if they didn’t have a care in the world. They didn’t notice the red-tail hawk circling overhead, but Josiah did.
A small garden stood at the back of the house with herbs and a few stalks of corn still struggling to survive, even though it was November. Weeds were thick, gone to seed, and there would surely be no sign of the garden next year if Billie’s luck continued on as it had.
The horses didn’t look like they had been cared for properly in a good while, either. Josiah couldn’t fault Billie for the neglect. He just felt sad for her. Surely there were town folk that could have come out to help her, but it didn’t look like that had happened. He wondered why.
Of the two horses, only one looked to be of use. It was a tall palomino mare, her buckskin coat still shiny, but not nearly as much as it could be with some tending. Her mane was almost pure white. She looked to be about fifteen hands tall.
The other horse was a mare, too—a swaybacked black horse, graying at the snout and a good deal shorter than the palomino. The black mare eyed Josiah cautiously, backing up and snorting as he made his way toward the lean-to.
He found a catch box about a third full of moist oats, scooped out a handful, and offered it to whichever one of the horses would come to him.
“That there black one is Sulky. I’ve had her since I was a little girl. She’s been skittish and leery of men ever
