Way Back Page 28

  “It’ll be full dark in less than an hour,” Cole said now, retracting the spyglass, stowing it in his saddlebag.

  “You have to let me ride in alone,” I reminded them. As per our plan, they would wait at Branch’s empty cabin until I could determine what had happened in Howardsville since Aemon Turnbull and the man called Vole shot up the jailhouse and killed Branch; I prayed Ax and Cole would not inflict bodily harm upon one another before my return. “I’ll go first to Celia, like we talked about. Maybe she’s heard something. I can sneak into Rilla’s the back way and get to Celia’s room without anyone ever knowing.” I was dying to know if she and the baby were unharmed.

  Cole said, “I aim to keep an eye on the train cars while you go down there.”

  “What if someone sees you?” I argued, shifting on the saddle. Blade snorted and stamped his front hooves, one after the other. “You two need to get to Branch’s, like we talked about.”

  “Ruthie…” Axton began. He was pale and drawn, in no shape to be up and about, let alone for hard riding. But his eyes burned with purpose.

  I mustered my sternest stare, fixing it on Axton. “There’s no time to argue. Give me fifteen minutes. I’ll meet you and we can decide what to do next. Case!” I hissed when he didn’t respond, and then all but stuttered to correct myself. “Ax! Please, listen to me.”

  “I am listening, I swear.”

  I didn’t bother telling him he was bleeding again; he already knew.

  Cole pinned me with his intense gaze and insisted, “You got your rifle, Ruthie? You ready to use it?”

  Miles’s rifle was secured in a leather scabbard on Blade’s saddle. I felt better for having this armament, not that I would be much good at using the huge, cumbersome thing. Cole had given me rudimentary instructions while we rode. I figured I could blow a hole in the side of a building, at least.

  Aim for the chest, dead center, not the head, Cole had instructed at least five times.

  “Yes, to both. I will see you soon.” I curbed the urge to worry over Axton’s ashen appearance, heeling Blade’s flanks and insisting, “At Branch’s!”

  My last sight was of Cole nodding in terse, tight-lipped agreement.

  I took a side street to Rilla’s, eyeing the familiar sights of Howardsville by lantern light. As I neared the saloon I saw the remains of the jail-house, only a block away, burned to its foundation, the listing iron cell bars the only pieces of the interior yet upright.

  If I see a hair on your head, Aemon Turnbull, you are fucking dead. I will shoot you square in the chest or straight in the spine and I will not hesitate for a fucking second. I will kill you like you killed Miles Rawley.

  I realized Vole could be just as responsible for shooting Miles. I had no idea what Vole looked like and would not recognize him on sight, but that played to my advantage, too; he didn’t know me, either. I wanted Vole and Aemon dead, both of them, bloodthirsty in ways I’d never known myself capable.

  Rilla’s main floor was lively with music, as always. Her windows glowed copper and I could see my breath on the chill night air as I approached the back porch, with slow-paced caution, the place where I’d so often sat with Axton and Branch during my early days at Rilla’s; I remembered the night Axton and I admired the full July moon, my very first evening in Howardsville. The rocking chairs were empty and ghostlike this night, the moon absent from the sky, lending better cover.

  I’d intended to tether Blade to the iron hitching post at Rilla’s but thought better of it and tied him two saloons down the block before backtracking and creeping inside, listening as hard as I could. All activity was happening at the front of the saloon, as usual; the kitchen remained unoccupied. Just ahead was the narrow, enclosed staircase I’d climbed many times while living here and I climbed it now, taking care not to let my bootheels thump on the wooden risers.

  The upstairs hall seemed vacant but I waited out of sight, a few risers from the landing, to make sure, stretching out with my senses. Familiar noises met my ears, bed frames thumping, sighs and grunts and moans. I cringed at the memory of all the nights I’d listened to those sounds, recalling nothing more about myself than my name. And then, catching me off guard because there were so many other things I needed to be thinking about just now, life or death things, I thought of making love with Marshall, my sweet, passionate Marshall. It was like a lightning bolt from a clear sky sizzling into my deepest center, so forceful I bent forward and pressed both hands to my belly.

  I miss you so much. Marsh, oh God, I would give anything to hear your voice, to feel you touch me. Do you know this? Probably they found my car and you think I’m dead. Oh Marsh, believe I’m alive out there. Please, believe that.

  “Ruth?” A harsh whisper, but I recognized Celia’s voice and it returned me abruptly to the here and now, hiding out in a whorehouse in 1881. She edged closer, advancing to the top of the staircase, and I flew up the last three steps to embrace her. Her plump arms enfolded me, knocking the hat from my head. I could feel her rapid heartbeat and the fullness of her belly. She murmured, “I knew I heard someone creeping about back here. Come along, grab your hat and be quick!”

  Celia toted me to her room; she shut and latched the door, and then asked softly, “What did I tell you?”

  But she wasn’t speaking to me.

  “Oh God!” I cried before I could lower my voice. I raced to the bedside, falling to both knees, my hands hovering like birds, afraid to touch her because it might hurt her even worse.

  They’d beaten her brutally. Tears washed my dusty cheeks as I babbled and cried at the same time, trying to tell her it was all right now, and to find out who’d done this heinous thing to her. Engorged purple blotches and angry red welts marred nearly every inch of her pale face; her right eye was swollen shut. She lay on her side on Celia’s bed but at my sudden appearance she struggled to one elbow and reached for me.

  The words distorted by her bruised lips, she whispered, “I am…ever so sorry.”

  I gathered her cold hands, resting my forehead on her knuckles. “You’re here, we’ve been so scared, oh my God…”

  Patricia intertwined our fingers. Her voice shook. “He killed him…didn’t he?”

  I couldn’t sort out if she meant Miles, or if she thought Axton was dead. I clamped hold of my wits and drew a deep breath, knowing I must explain. Celia, wrapped in her gray silk shawl, perched on the edge of the bed. She put her hand on my spine, rubbing with gentle circular motions. I knew my words would hurt Celia, even if she claimed to have no more feelings for Miles, and so I looked between both women as I whispered, “Miles was shot from a distance. He’s…gone.”

  I could hardly speak the word. I refused to say dead. Celia’s face tightened into an abrupt mask of pain. She gritted her teeth and smoothed her free hand over the bulk of her pregnant belly; tears leaked from beneath her long lashes as she whispered, “Miles. Goddammit.”

  Patricia moaned, “Oh, no. No, no…”

  I reached to rest my palms on Celia, as lightly as if touching a soap bubble. She covered my hands and I felt Miles’s son shifting within her. The shock of it beat at me; what if I was touching Marshall’s many-times great-grandfather? Would Marshall and his family – dear Clark, Garth and Sean, Quinn and Wy – suddenly cease to exist if I did not save this baby? My desperate eyes flew to Celia’s – her beautiful, thickly-lashed gray eyes, Marshall’s eyes – and I said, with passionate certainty, “This child is a boy. He is kin to the Rawleys and the only child Miles will ever father. Please, I beg of you, go to his brother, Grant Rawley. Grant and his wife Birdie will care for you. Birdie will raise this baby, she has sworn to me. I will help find someone to escort you to them. Their homestead is due west of Howardsville.”

  Celia’s dark eyebrows knit in consternation. “I aim to send the child east, as we discussed. Rilla’s allowing me three nights off, each week, under this condition.”

  “Celia,” I pleaded. “So much more depends on this child than you could ev
er know, please, I beg of you.”

  I knew she couldn’t possibly comprehend the situation – and who could blame her – but she did perceive my sincerity and cupped one soft palm against my cheek, which was wet with tears.

  “They won’t turn me away?” she whispered, and for the first time I glimpsed hope in her eyes.

  “Of course they won’t. I told them everything.” I rested my temple upon her bulging stomach, not caring if this seemed crazy to her and Patricia; the baby pushed a foot or an elbow against the gentle pressure of my touch. I thought fervently, Be safe, little baby. Stay safe. I need you. Your descendent is my true love and even if I never find him again I need to know that Marshall Rawley will exist somewhere in time.

  “Little Ruthie,” Celia murmured, petting my hair as she would a cat nuzzling her belly. “You are a strange one, I ain’t gonna lie, but I don’t doubt you mean what you say.”

  “Then you’ll go to them?” I rejoiced, and a phantom of a smile touched Celia’s full lips. She nodded with two slow bobs of her head.

  Patricia touched my shoulder and implored hoarsely, “Is Axton all right? What of Cole?”

  New fear ravaged her expression. I scrubbed tears from my face and hurried to tell her, “They are both here with me, waiting for us at Branch’s. I’ll take you there.”

  But to my surprise, she insisted heatedly, “No.”

  “What do you mean? Tell me what’s happened! Why are you here?”

  “Celia found me.” Patricia clung to my hands as she related what she’d been through since she disappeared, speaking carefully through her beaten mouth. “I would rather have died than leave with no word, but I could not risk losing my resolve. The moment Axton spoke of the train cars I knew what I must do, that all of you were increasingly endangered by my continued presence. I had perhaps a quarter-hour’s head start, at most, and prayed it would be sufficient.”

  “Who beat you?”

  Once outside, she had slipped to the corral and found a horse still tacked, leading the animal by its halter until out of sight of the house; then, heart quaking, she climbed atop the mare, clumsy in her skirts, and cantered east.

  “I thought to divert them.”

  And she had, intercepting a group of five mounted men, none of whom she recognized in the confusion of darkness and terror. Even so, she explained who she was and offered to return to Howardsville in their company, with no trouble. She had made herself so vulnerable, been at such mercy, and it was almost more than I could bear.

  “None of those men were the Yancys?”

  “None directly. They were, however, hired by Thomas, this much I was able to discern. And once I was able to focus upon their faces, I recognized Aemon Turnbull, the beast who attacked you in Howardsville. And another…”

  “Tell me,” I implored. “Another, what?”

  Patricia winced, lips compressing.

  Celia answered instead. “Another of them bastards demanded to know Miles’s exact whereabouts. Patricia claimed not to know but the bastard beat her into telling him.”

  Flashes of heated sickness pulsed in my gut. Patricia seemed to be choking and I climbed beside her on the bed, aligning our bodies exactly the way we’d slept in our shared bed. Cuddling her close, this woman whose soul I believed would one day inhabit my sister Tish, I said, “It’s not your fault. It’s not. You tried to save us.”

  Patricia wept, clinging to my forearms, pressing her bruised face to my neck though it must have caused her pain. She gulped, “I thought if I didn’t tell him…he would kill me.”

  She was referring to the man called Vole, I would have bet almost anything. Patricia explained that after he’d dragged her from her horse and punched her repeatedly, he demanded again to know if Miles was hiding at the Rawley homestead. Half-senseless with pain, Patricia nodded and the man threw her to the ground and mounted his horse, cantering west without further ado. The remaining four men debated for a time whether they should accompany their companion, finally concluding that rather than risk their skins in a gunfight, they could return to Howardsville with the Yancy bride and claim their monetary prize.

  Thomas Yancy had offered them gold in return for the safe delivery of his daughter-in-law; though, as Patricia learned, the Yancys had made no public announcement of her disappearance, preferring to keep the matter secret and involving others on a strictly need-to-know basis. They couldn’t contain the gossip in Howardsville but the remote railroad town was a far cry from Chicago. Celia, keeping an ear open for news of us since we’d left town, heard talk earlier this afternoon she didn’t at first believe, that of a woman brought to town under the cover of darkness. Alert for any sign of information, she recognized Aemon Turnbull’s horse at the hitching rail at Rilla’s, his old favorite haunt. It hadn’t been too difficult to guess that Turnbull was enjoying the services offered upstairs.

  “I thought the little bastard might have you captive, Ruthie,” Celia explained. “I caught Turnbull in Lucy’s room, pants around his goddamn ankles. I should have brained him on the spot. I told him I knew he had a woman somewhere and he would tell me where or I’d separate him from his favorite body parts, forthwith.” A small, wry smile stretched her lips. “It wouldn’t have been much of a difficulty, seeing how his wrists was tied to Lucy’s bedposts at the time.”

  Turnbull admitted to Celia the men he’d ridden into town with had been hired by Thomas Yancy to find Yancy’s daughter-in-law. Turnbull claimed he wanted no trouble, said they’d found the girl during the night and deposited her at the train cars just as ordered, and there she remained.

  “No longer his problem, Turnbull said, and I headed for the depot before the bastard could blink,” Celia explained. “No plan, no idea what I might say. Ain’t but two hours ago, this was. I knocked on that railroad car door ’til my fist was near bleeding before a fella answered. Two men sat in there playing cards, drunk on cheap whiskey, but I came up with a story while I was waiting, thank God, and said I’d been hired to clean up young Mrs. Yancy for the journey back east. Told them to get her in the wagon and haul her to Rilla’s or it would be their sorry hides. And I brought her straightaway here.”

  “But now I must return,” Patricia whispered.

  “Are you kidding me?” I cried. “You aren’t leaving my sight! Case would never forgive me, for one thing.”

  “Case?” Patricia whispered hesitantly.

  “Cole. I mean Cole,” I said hastily; I had to take better care not to slip up like that. “Shit, it’s been more than fifteen minutes, hasn’t it? We have to meet him and Axton at Branch’s. They’ll flip out if I take any longer.” I hesitated for less than a second; now was not the time to worry about the animosity between Ax and Cole, and how it would unfold once Patricia was in sight.

  Patricia sat straighter, knotted with tension. “No. Thomas’s men would kill them without a moment’s hesitation. There must be no interference. I must return with no struggle.” Her eyes grew wild with fear. “Ruthann, please heed my words.”

  “I won’t let you go back to men who beat you. You aren’t safe!”

  “None of the hired men shall lay a hand upon me,” she insisted. “They shall return to collect me before full dark and I must be here.”

  “And then what?” I demanded, heart clubbing.

  “I shall return to Chicago and face my husband.” Her stubborn will faltered a little, even if she didn’t want me to notice, and she lifted her chin with admirable fortitude. “It must be this way, there is no other, do you not see? I cannot imagine what they would do to Axton or Cole.” Tears poured down her swollen face. She swallowed hard, whispering past a massive bulge in her throat, “Dredd is easily convinced of anything I say as long as Thomas and Fallon are away.”

  “No,” I interrupted. “I won’t let you. Ax and Cole will only follow after, no matter where you go, you know this is true.”

  I could sense curious questions rising in Celia’s throat but she said nothing.

  Patricia sh
ook her head, fiercely.

  “I’ll carry you if I have to!” I yelled.

  “Please understand, Ruthie…”

  “There’s no fucking way I’m leaving you here!”

  There was a sudden commotion below, on the main floor. Celia lifted an index finger, indicating silence; she went to the door, opening it and stepping into the hallway. Shouting male voices, the sounds of an escalating argument. The music stopped with a screech of fiddle strings. And then someone threw a heavy piece of furniture, maybe a barstool. I raced to Celia’s side, peering around her as if I had a hope of seeing what was going on downstairs; the absence of fiddle and piano was so strange that other doors began popping open, everyone inquisitive. Above the cacophony of raised voices we heard Rilla’s scornful demand, “What gives you the right?”

  Someone fired a gun, the noise sending us jerking in startled fright.

  “You two must go, now,” Celia hissed, shaking my elbow. “Get away from here as quick as you can!”

  “But what about—”

  “I’ll be right as rain, don’t you worry,” Celia insisted. “I’ll get to the Rawleys’ place, I swear to you I will. Now go! Patricia, you too!”

  I threw my arms around Celia and kissed her round cheek. “Be safe.”

  We might have made it. I hooked an arm about Patricia’s waist and together we crept down the back steps and through the pantry; there was screaming from the bar, and additional gunshots. The twilit night was just beyond the screen door, our freedom only steps away. I knew I could get us to Blade. Our footsteps clattered over the porch boards.

  “Leaving so soon, Patricia?” asked a man as he strode around the side of Rilla’s building, detouring through the alley.

  Patricia faltered, issuing a short, high-pitched cry – a rabbit in the jaws of a steel trap. I stared between her and this tall, slender stranger effectively blocking our flight.