“Is he?”
“No. I’m a widow.”
“Kind of interesting, then, that you’re not wearing widow’s weeds. You being pregnant suggests he must have died recently, else you made short work of finding another fella to warm your bed.”
Phoebe’s stomach turned over. “We have to stop. I’m going to be sick.” And this time she didn’t wait for him to help her. Her dismount was clumsy; she was sliding off the saddle before she had her right leg properly over the mare’s back. She might have fallen to the ground if she hadn’t been squeezed between the pair of horses. Mr. Shoulders was forced to give her room to move and she slipped out and hurried ten yards to the side and was promptly sick.
Phoebe did not hear him coming up behind her so she startled when his hand appeared holding a canteen. She accepted it without thanking him, sipped, rinsed, and spit. When she took a second mouthful, she swallowed and returned the canteen. He accepted it and thrust a blue kerchief at her. Phoebe’s first thought was that it was a match for the ones his men wore. Her second thought was to take it and dab at her mouth. After she was done, she carefully folded it, and held out her hand to give it back. He refused it, shaking his head, and she tucked it under the sleeve of her blouse at the wrist.
“C’mon. Time’s wasting, but I think you know that.”
• • •
Remington set out from the train alone. He reasoned that in the end it was better that way. There were some volunteers, and as it happened, there were four horses being transported in addition to his pair of thoroughbreds, but when Remington polled the men who stepped forward to help, he judged them to be more eager than experienced and therefore a hindrance. He bartered one of his thoroughbreds for a steel-gray gelding whose owner swore was a surefooted mount who could cut calves from the herd with the precision of a surgeon’s scalpel. For Remington the advantage was securing an animal that was used to having someone on his back and could take direction from an experienced rider. The gelding, whose name was Bullet, deserved the moniker because he was swift right out of the gate.
Setting off in the direction provided by Mrs. Jacob C. Tyler and verified by several other passengers, Remington found the trail easily enough. The rising moon, only a few days past full, cast sufficient silver light across the landscape for Remington to keep Bullet moving at a steady pace. There were signs early on that reinforced Remington’s thinking that he was making the right choices. Trampled tufts of long grass. Loose rock. A disturbed bed of needles at the edge of a row of loblolly pines. Divots of turf where the horses had made a steep ascent. There were so many signs, in fact, that Remington wondered at the experience of the men he was following. They had chosen to stop the train at least thirty miles from the nearest town, and they had cut the telegraph line. They had set a bonfire to warn the train of approaching danger, so it seemed their intention was not to harm the passengers unduly. They made a good job removing ties and rails on the other side of the bonfire, but they hadn’t destroyed them. Remington suspected that within a couple of hours the track would be repaired with enough integrity to support the train moving forward. By that time, No. 486 would be so late for its next scheduled stop in Frost Falls, coupled with the lack of communication, that someone would be sent out to investigate.
What planning there had been appeared to be around the safety of their victims. So why had they taken Phoebe Apple? An impulse? Something motivated by revenge for her actions? Remington could not make sense of that.
The train had been stopped and boarded at dusk, which was better, he imagined, than carrying out the robbery in the full light of day. And yet they had chosen an evening with a nearly full moon. That was hardly wise, so did it mean they had no choice or were so sure of success that they saw moonlight as no impediment to their escape? According to Mrs. Tyler and the lieutenant’s wife, the men did not overstay their welcome. To turn a phrase, they came, saw, and conquered.
And now they were gone.
Remington’s attention was caught by something fluttering in some scrub brush off to his left. He slowed Bullet to a walk and cut sideways. He could not make out the thing he was seeing because its fluttering folded it in on itself like a wounded bird pulling in its wings. He could not reach it from the saddle, so he dismounted to investigate.
Moonlight had exposed the kerchief but also leached it of its color. It appeared gray, but Remington had no doubt that it was blue. He lifted it to his nose and sniffed. The odors were unmistakable. Sweat. Vomit. And a hint of lavender. That was interesting.
He folded the kerchief and put it in a pocket inside his coat. It would serve as evidence, provided anyone made it to trial, and Remington did not hold out much hope for that outcome. His mouth pulled to one side as he shook his head in derision and disgust. He gave Bullet a pat on the neck before he remounted. “They have the collective sense of a bag of hammers.” Then he was off.
Remington estimated he rode for twelve, maybe thirteen miles, circling back occasionally when he realized he had strayed from the trail. He regretted that he had asked Mrs. Tyler if perhaps Phoebe Apple was one bullet short of a six-shooter. He hadn’t put it in terms that plain, of course, but it was what he had been thinking. Mrs. Tyler had sethim straight. He knew now that Phoebe was not only clever; she was resourceful.
He had no idea how many clues she’d left to mark her passing because he did not believe he had found them all, but what he did find kept him from meandering far from the trail. She had dropped a silver-plated hair comb, the kind that kept her heavy hair tucked neatly in place. She appeared to have snagged the hem of a lacy petticoat or shift on a bramble bush. That little white flag was like a beacon in the moonlight. Clearly her captors were bent on getting where they were going and not paying enough attention to her.
Remington slowed Bullet to a walk again when he caught sight of the rough-hewn cabin tucked in a gentle slope between a narrow stream and a nearly impenetrable thicket of water birches. Dismounting, he approached slowly. Neither he nor the surefooted Bullet made much sound. At a distance of seventy yards, Remington saw movement at the edge of the birches. A horse revealed itself, saddled but tethered to a tree. He waited, expecting to see three more animals, but after two long minutes, none appeared.
Not knowing what he would find when he reached the cabin, Remington left Bullet secured among some junipers and continued alone. The evening had turned cool enough that a fire would have been a comfort for any occupant, but the distinctive odor of wood smoke was absent in the air. The presence of the horse suggested someone was around but did not necessarily mean the cabin was occupied. Remington veered his approach in order to skirt the edge of the thicket and take cover if needed among the water birches.
He saw no evidence that the property was regularly used any longer. No patch of land had been tilled and seeded for a garden. The small smokehouse looked to have been abandoned for some time; the structure leaned noticeably toward the stream.
The tethered horse nickered softly as Remington came upon it. He stroked the mare’s neck, quieting her. Her damp coat told him that she had been ridden recently. No one had attended to her, which suggested that time was a moreimportant consideration than the animal’s well-being. He laid his hand on the saddle and found it was cool to the touch. There was no lingering warmth from the rider’s body heat. The mare did not appear to be injured, and abandoning it while still tethered seemed unnecessarily cruel. Given that cruelty did not appear to be a hallmark of the robbery or the robbers, Remington believed he would find at least one occupant. He examined the mare’s tack again. No rifle scabbard. No saddlebag. Perhaps those items had been removed, but if the mare had never carried them, it meant he was standing beside the animal that Phoebe Apple had ridden.
Remington continued his cautious approach to the cabin. If the situation had not demanded restraint, there might have been a spring in his step.
Chapter Four
Phoebe’s fingers scrabbled to pluck at the knotted rope that not only bound her wrists together but also secured her to the foot of the cabin’s sole bed. She had been engaged in this activity since the men left her and no longer had any sense of the passage of time. Her fingers were stiff and her wrists burned where she imagined they had been rubbed raw by the heavy hemp rope.
Mr. Shoulders had shown no compassion for her condition, ordering her to sit on the floor so one of his men could tie her to a foot leg. She made an effective, if mildly embarrassing, argument for another call of nature, and the men vacated the cabin while she used the porcelain pot. They did not stray far—she could hear them talking just beyond the door—and they did not give her much time. She was shoving the pot under the bed when they stomped back in. Mr. Shoulders made his first order of business to pull the pot out and determine that it was used. His men sniggered at what was now deeply humiliating to her. That lasted as long as it took Shoulders to thrust the pot at one of them. That unfortunate fellow slunk outside to empty it while the other man tied her up. Phoebe wanted badly to yank on his blue kerchief and reveal the face of at least one of her captors. She didn’t, though. Perhaps it was good judgment that prevented her from taking action, but she suspected that her courage might have finally failed her.
After she was tied, they had talked for a bit among themselves. She couldn’t make out everything they said because their deep voices were like sluggish sash flies buzzingaround her head, but she understood there was a disagreement and because of the furtive glances in her direction, it was clear she was the bone of contention.
Phoebe was not flattered. Whatever plan was unfolding, there wasn’t enough trust among them for one or even two of them to see it through. They were all in, or all out. That meant she would be left behind. Alone.
Excited by the prospect, her heart stuttered, jumped, and then was still. It was in that brief stillness that she recognized it was not merely excitement that had overtaken her. It was fear.
A succession of calamities immediately sprang to mind: fire if the lantern tipped; darkness if the oil ran out; hunger; thirst; the return of the mad mountain man who likely owned the cabin; unseasonably cold nights; and worst of all to her way of thinking, sitting in her own waste.
Phoebe wanted to believe that she remained stoic as the catastrophes mounted—flood, landslide, high winds that would remove the roof and collapse the timber walls—but it was probably truer that she telegraphed every one of her end-of-life thoughts and her captors simply did not give a damn.
