“Toward the mountains.”
“What happened?”
Jack wished he knew why Shea had bolted the way she did.“She … wanted to see something of the ranch.No one was there to saddle a horse, and she took Hooker.I had just gotten to the porch when the horse took off.I couldn’t saddle one fast enough, and no one else was there.”
“We’ll find her.You stay here with Kate.”
Jack shook his head.“She might … come back.”
“Then Kate will take you home and wait with you.”
Jack nodded.One of the men helped him down, while Michael strode back inside the house to call Kate.He returned and told Randall, “Kate will be out in a moment.”He hesitated.“We’ll find her, Jack.At least we got the bastard behind all this trouble.”
No, Randall wanted to say.But he couldn’t delay the searchers now.
He watched the men ride off in a cloud of dust, and in just a moment Kate was beside him.“Michael will find her,” she said with confidence.“He’ll pick up the tracks at your place.Wait here, and I’ll hitch the buggy.”
But Jack couldn’t wait.He couldn’t sit and do nothing.He walked with her to the barn, wishing the clamoring in his head would stop so he could think.Too much was happening.Shea gone.Tyler captured.McClary on the loose.He had hoped McClary might have left the territory, but he knew now he hadn’t.Rafe Tyler wouldn’t go after a miner.Jack Randall was the onehewanted.
Randall didn’t know how McClary was doing it, but he was framing Tyler all over again.
And if Shea ever discovered … She would be gone just like her mother.
He helped Kate hitch the horses as best he could, and then took the reins with his good right hand.He would go crazy if he didn’t do something.He had wanted desperately to go with the men, but he would only slow them down.
When they arrived at the Circle R, Kate wanted to help him back to bed, but he refused.He poured himself a glass of whiskey and went into his office, sitting back in his chair while Kate busied herself fixing coffee.He opened the drawer with the tintype of Sara and took it out.He stared at it for several minutes, seeing so many similarities between mother and daughter.The same stubborn chin.The eyes, brown in the picture, but forever a tranquil bluish-gray in his mind.His hand went back into the drawer, searching for the letter.
It wasn’t there.He pulled the drawer all the way out, hoping against hope that it might have been caught someplace in the back.
It was gone.
He emptied the glass of whiskey and buried his head in his hands.He suspected now why his daughter had left.
Shea realized she was hopelessly lost.As she climbed higher, the landscape kept changing.Nothing seemed familiar.The temperature was dropping quickly.It would soon be dark.
Shivering in the dress, her legs protected only by thin cotton pantalets, she turned the tired horse downward, hoping to find Rushton Creek or some stream leading to it.
She realized how foolish she had been, how much she had underestimated these mountains, which Rafe had warned her not to do.
She rode awhile, then walked again, leading the horse up steep inclines.She reached a sheer wall of stone.Water was dripping down and had formed a small pool before running downward across rocks.She stopped and used her hands to form a bowl and drink.The horse moved eagerly to the small pool and drank greedily.Shea sat on a rock and tried to decide what to do next.She could follow the water down.Or she could stay the night here and start looking for Rafe’s valley again in the morning when there was better light.
She looked around.Some nearby wild raspberry bushes decided her.
After tying the reins of the horse to a bush, she gathered firewood and picked wild raspberries.She started a fire, and in minutes the wood was burning merrily, radiating much-needed warmth.Shea leaned back against a rock and ate the raspberries.
In the weeks she’d spent with Rafe, she’d learned to appreciate the songs of the woods: the chirp of crickets, the hoot of an owl, the stirring of night creatures.Noises that he had been denied for ten years.He would listen with an intensity that silently revealed pleasure his stonily set face seldom showed.
She couldn’t bear the thought of him throwing away what was left of his freedom and life.She had to find him.
Then she thought about her father and what she’d discovered, in his desk.Jack Randall would recover.She wasn’t sure that Rafe Tyler would.
By nightfall the men who had been searching for Shea appeared at the Circle R empty-handed.Clint returned, too, from the range and found out about the missing Shea and about Rafe being taken in.There was even talk of miners going to Casey Springs and forming a lynching party.
Kate had already cooked dinner, and as she served the meal, Clint thought of how amazing she was.She moved confidently among the men, sharing quick words about the search while dishing out a tasty stew.
Jack Randall looked as if he’d aged years.Clint knew he probably did too.He realized that Shea had probably gone looking for Rafe, that she was somewhere in the mountains.He had to alert Ben and the others both about Shea Randall’s disappearance and Rafe’s capture.
Shea was the most immediate problem.He wasn’t sure how long she could last out there.As soon as he ate, he planned to search on his own.
