ADAM WAITED FOR the stage over an hour, but none came. The wind tried to push him off the street and inside the stage office. Moisture in the air darkened his hair to black, but he waited, wanting to be there when the stage arrived. He turned his collar up and paced the dirt in front of the office so many times the clods became powder. Wolf wouldn’t have asked a favor if it hadn’t been important. And today was the first day something traveling by stage could have reached him from Tennessee.
What if Wolf asked him to keep something that was important to the South? Could he do such a thing, even as a favor? Would he? He owed Wolf for helping the night the twins were born. He’d heard men talk about how the South wasn’t licked yet and how rebs were planning to rise and fight again. Maybe Wolf had something he needed to keep safe until the uprising. What if it were hidden gold to buy guns for another fight?
No, Adam told himself, Wolf wouldn’t ask him to do such a thing. The man knew what side the McLains had fought on.
Adam continued his pacing, trying to imagine what would be so important to Wolf that he’d ship it to Texas for safekeeping.
“Doc!” Harry yelled from the Butterfield office. The young man was always moving, dodging invisible bullets with his nervous youth. “Come around to the barn quick! The stage has been attacked, and a rider’s tellin’ all about it.”
Adam joined a crowd suddenly surrounding the large livery at the edge of town.
Harry jogged by his side. “Rider came in a few minutes ago. Said it looked like the coach busted a wheel and made itself a sitting duck about three hours east. Comanche or maybe even Comancheros burned what they could, then killed old Randy, the driver, and Amos who was riding shotgun.”
The young man fought down emotion by staying in constant motion. “I knew them both, I did.”
Rocking back on his heels, Harry added, “I figured since you were waiting for the stage, you’d want to know.”
“Were there any passengers?” A nagging feeling began to throb in the back of Adam’s head. He could think of only one thing Wolf valued and protected like a mother hen… Nichole.
“Telegram said there was a gentleman and a lady. I don’t know if they was traveling together.” Harry looked suddenly sad for the doctor who’d been waiting so long. “The rider didn’t find any other bodies near the broken- down stage. Maybe the passengers got away or the Indians took her as a captive. If the robbers were Comancheros, she’ll be in Mexico before you can catch up to them and it’s anybody’s guess what happened to the gentleman.”
“Or maybe the rider just didn’t find the bodies,” someone in the crowd volunteered. “I know I wouldn’t stay around to search the place too closely, and they could have drug a woman off to the side for a while before they killed her.”
Adam rubbed his brow. If it were Nick, she could have been traveling as a woman, or a man. He couldn’t very well ask about a passenger when he couldn’t name the gender.
“If the Comanche have her, they’ll trade her, but if those thieving Comancheros have her, you might as well count her dead,” another man offered. “As for any man, he’d be killed outright.”
“Fine time for the sheriff to be gone,” someone mumbled.
“The deputy’s organizing a group to go take a look!” a man at the far side of the crowd yelled. “He don’t want to, but some of us reminded him that, until the sheriff gets back from Austin, Deputy Russell has his job to do.”
As if on command, Russell stood at the front of the crowd and announced he’d be going out to survey the crime scene and he expected every able-bodied man to go with him. The crowd moved away. A few mumbled about Russell being worse than any outlaw they might find. Some went to collect horses and weapons, others to spread the news.
Within an hour a dozen volunteers waited to leave. Adam was among them. He wasn’t sure if the shipment would be Nichole, but he had to know. If she’d been on the stage, she wouldn’t have died without a fight. There would be signs. If she’d been there, even dressed as a woman, she would have been armed. If she’d been dressed as a man, she might be the “gentleman” who disappeared.
Three hours later the posse saw the smoke from the still-smoldering stagecoach. The horses were gone and the cargo scattered. Two bodies lay facedown atop the overturned stage. Since there was no evidence they’d been tied, they must have already been dead before they burned. There was no telling which had been the driver, nor did it matter.
Icy rain popped and sizzled against the dying fire. Deputy Russell yelled, “Let’s take care of these men and look around as quickly as possible! With dark coming on and the rain freezing, we’ll all be grave stuffing if we don’t get back to town.”
Adam watched Russell closely. He seemed mismatched for his job. Though he wore a gun strapped to his leg, he didn’t seem the type who would fight for anything except his own life. Maybe. Harry said he’d won the job during the war when every able man was fighting. The sheriff hadn’t had any others apply for the job so Russell stayed on, mostly as a caretaker to the office. His red eyes and the shake in his hands told Adam that the deputy had a drinking problem. In this country drinking wasn’t all that unusual, for most men forty or older had a lot they needed to forget.
While four men stood guard, others dug graves and the deputy made a great show of investigating the area. From the tracks that had already been muddied in the rain, he determined that there was no woman passenger. He saw no signs, no woman’s clothing among the cargo, no blood, no body. If there had been a woman, the tracks of the horses ended abruptly half a mile downstream, so there was no way to follow her or the raiders.
Adam didn’t accept the deputy’s quick answers. He made his own circuit of the scene. Nothing. He examined the bodies as best he could before they were buried. Both men’s throats had been cut deep, but their bodies were curled up in final sleep, making it hard to see any bullet holes. These two men had been alive and active only hours before, but now their arms and hands were withered and black, as though they’d finished a lifetime of aging in death’s final moments.
He turned away to join Russell. “Find anything?”
“No,” the deputy answered, then yelled, “Mount up!” before Adam could ask more.
The ride back was almost silent. Adam guessed, like himself, the others had seen far more death and killing than they’d have liked and none had enough drink in him to talk about the adventure of today.
When he reached home, it was full dark, but the nun had left a supper for him. Adam tried to eat, but couldn’t. He had no way of contacting Wolf. He wasn’t sure the “shipment” was on the stage today. There could have been delays anywhere along the line. But one thing he knew, if the “shipment” was Nichole, she would still be alive and he’d find her. She hadn’t survived the war as a Shadow to be killed by robbers.
By dawn, he’d decided to see if he could round up a few men and go out to the scene again. He must have missed something, he told himself. If she, or word from Wolf, wasn’t on the next stage, he’d be searching until he found her.
He’d planned to go over to the stage office without opening his practice, but folks were knocking on the door before he had time to get dressed. It seemed that several of the deputy’s posse finished the night drowning the memory of what they’d seen. Then, when the bartender tried to send them home, they busted up the place and themselves in the process. By dawn their senses, and newfound pains, hit them fully.
Adam added the line of men needing stitches to the usual number of children with colds and old folks with aches. Before he’d had breakfast, the foyer in the middle of the house was lined with people.
The sun was low, almost touching the silver stovepipe chimneys by the time he saw his last patient. He’d sent Nance Edward over to see if anything came in on the stage. The boy reported that they were holding up the line in Dallas for another day so that a few of the troops from Fort Griffin could ride along. He also said Harry told him to let the doctor know that there was no word on the woman and man who were passengers.
Adam tried to read, but couldn’t concentrate. He could find no clues in the dark so he’d have to wait another day to return to the burned stage. Another day would cost him dearly in his chances of finding anything.
After listening to a few of his patients, he wasn’t sure he could find anyone to go with him. These folks weren’t overly friendly, barely said howdy on the street, but when danger came, they were like ants on a rainy day. No one wanted to leave their home.
Giving up reading, Adam stepped out on the front porch. He liked this time of night when respectable folks were
