Laura looked at Miles in disbelief. “Miles Sutton, I stole those route schedules for you!”
“Yes, you did, and I greatly appreciate the risks you took, my dear. When we met back at Howard, I knew your daddy being a banker would be of immense help one day. And it was. Now I’m going to leave you two ladies together while I go and hide the horses and the buggy.”
And he walked back outside.
There was silence after his departure. Cara thought Laura looked devastated. Cara almost felt sorry for her—almost. She went to the doorway and looked out. How far had Miles gone?
Laura said from behind her, “If you’re thinking about running, I wouldn’t advise it. Those sunflowers go on for acres all around. You’ll be lost for days.”
Cara knew she was probably right, but wanted to escape. The memory of Chase lying injured on the ground burned vividly in her mind’s eye. She felt the desperate need to get help for him and be at his side. But that would never come to pass unless she could get free. Her eyes narrowed as she began to formulate a plan.
“So, Laura,” Cara said, turning back to face the dark room, “you were the one who stole the schedules of the gold coaches.”
Laura didn’t say anything.
“Why, Laura?”
“Why should I tell you anything?”
“Yes,” Miles said, walking in out of the sunshine. “Why should she tell you anything? Laura, you just keep your pretty little mouth closed about that gold.”
“Does she know how many people died on those gold coaches?”
“We knew there would be risks,” Miles said.
“Those were real people, not risks.”
“I didn’t care anything about those real people. I cared about those gamblers. You were there the night they came waltzing into the church.”
“So you and your bandits killed all those people just because you couldn’t pay your gambling debts? What happened to all the money you swindled from the people back East?”
“I spent that establishing the Liberian Lady. I had suits to purchase, houses to buy for some lady friends, my quarters to furnish above the saloon.”
“So you spent it all?”
“It went like corn through a mill, but now with your help, my dear Cara, I won’t have to worry about money ever again.” He stared at her for a moment, then ordered Laura to give him two of her scarves.
“You’re asking too many questions, love, and jabbering far too much,” Miles explained as he gagged Cara with a silk scarf he took from Laura. With the other scarf he tightly tied her wrists behind her. He forced her to sit on the dirt floor in the far corner of the room.
Laura and Miles went outside to talk. At first they were conversing too softly for Cara to hear. Soon, however, they were arguing loudly. Cara heard nothing for a moment, then Laura was yelling at Miles to come back. Laura called again, louder this time. Her voice became fainter as she evidently ran after him.
Chase owed his life to Sheriff Wayman Polk. When he hadn’t shown up at the appointed time, the sheriff had ridden out to find him. He managed to get Chase into the house and rode back to town for help. Now, a few hours later, Chase was determined, if hardly ready, to ride.
“Goddammit! You’ve patched me up, Doc, now get the hell out of my way.”
Delbert looked up at the snarling Chase and said, “You’ve been patched up, Sergeant, but you’re in no condition to ride.”
“The hell I’m not. That bastard has my wife.”
According to the doctor, had the bullet in Chase’s chest been any lower, he would be dead; the splintered bone in his leg would take weeks to heal, but Chase was still struggling to get dressed and go.
“Dammit, Sophie, help me get this shirt on.”
She didn’t argue. She gave him the help he needed.
As Chase lifted his heavily bandaged shoulder and arm into the shirt, he ignored the pain and the sweat beading on his forehead. “Now the buttons,” he ordered crisply.
While she complied, he looked over her head at the sheriff and Asa. “Asa, when you and Sophie get back to town, have Miss Rachel wire the marshal in Wichita and Colonel Grierson at Fort Davis. Tell them what’s happened and that the sheriff and I are going after Miles and Laura.”
Delbert spoke up. “Sergeant, you really have to wait until—”
“I’ve ridden with worse injuries. I can sit Carolina long enough to catch the man who stole my wife.”
He stood on his splintered leg with the aid of a cane Sophie had provided. Asa came over and offered a shoulder for support. “Thanks,” Chase said, hobbling out to the porch. He whistled for the stallion. Carolina came running and stopped at the base of the steps. Asa and the sheriff helped Chase negotiate the steps and get over to the waiting horse. Chase gave a command in the Sioux language, and, to the amazement of those watching, the big animal went down on his front knees, which made it easier for Chase to mount.
“Now that’s something,” Asa muttered.
Chase patted the horse’s neck in approval. “I’ve had him since he was a colt. He’d ride me into the devil’s own kitchen if I asked, wouldn’t you, old boy?”
Chase looked at Sophie’s concerned face. “If I’m not back in five days, have Miss Rachel wire Dreamer of Eagles at Pine Ridge Reservation in the Dakotas. Let him know the full details of what happened. He’ll take it from there.”
Sophie nodded.
“Stop worrying, Soph. I’ll bring her back.”
If Chase was dead, surely she would know, wouldn’t she? Because of the untimely deaths of loved ones in the past, Cara had spent most of her life alone. Would fate be so cruel again?
“Thinking about soldier boy?”
Cara didn’t reply. She and Miles had left the soddy on horseback at first light. They’d been riding for so long she’d lost track of time and direction. She’d even stopped speculating on the absence of Laura Pope.
“Well, stop thinking about him. You’re never going to see him again.”
They rode on.
Chase and the sheriff rode west. They were able to track Miles’s vehicle fairly easily through the still-soft earth because one of the carriage wheels had a crack on the edge of its rim. It left a very distinctive mark when it rolled. Chase hadn’t wanted to wait for the sheriff to round up his makeshift posse because of how long it might have taken. Every moment he’d have spent waiting let Sutton put more distance between them. However, Chase felt good about having Sheriff Polk riding hard at his side, because he knew the lawman could be counted on in a tight situation.
Chase and the sheriff followed the tracks until they led off the road and into a field of giant sunflowers. Chase guided Carolina on the rutted track, pushing aside as best he could the large petals and faces of the flowers. He kept his senses alert for anything that could indicate danger as he and the lawman made their way through. They found the small soddy in the clearing, but no one was inside. “Is this place on our map, Sheriff?”
“I doubt it. This area is way beyond the boundaries of the original settlement.”
“Well, let’s take a look around.”
Walking was extremely painful for Chase, but with the help of the cane, he was able to move, albeit slowly. Inside they found evidence that someone had been residing there recently, but nothing to verify that it had indeed been Sutton. While Chase continued to survey the interior, Polk went outside to look around. When the lawman called, Chase hobbled out as quickly as possible.
Polk was making his way back to the soddy. “I found a woman’s body about a hundred yards back up in the sunflowers. Looks like Laura Pope. She was strangled. The buggy’s back there, and the tracks of two horses.”
Chase dropped his head. He was sorry Laura had come to such an end, but glad the body had not been his Cara Lee’s. Chase looked up at the sun to gauge the time. “It’ll be dark soon. What do you want to do, Sheriff?”
“I think we need that posse!”
“I’m going on,” Chase told him firml
y. “Sutton already has almost a day on us. Get your posse, if you want, but I’m not going to get off this trail.”
“You sure you can make it alone?”
“No, but I have to find Cara.”
The sheriff nodded. “Well, I’ll take the girl’s body back to town and rustle up the posse, and we’ll catch up to you somehow.”
Chase had Carolina kneel so he could mount.
The sheriff walked back toward the sunflowers and Chase rode on.
Chase picked up the tracks of the two horses, following them west.
By the time Miles halted the horses it was near dark. Cara’s arms and shoulders were burning from the strain of being tied. She’d tried to get away from him earlier, but he’d caught up with her nag of a horse and as punishment, he’d tied her hands in front of her body, attached her to a lead, and made her walk behind her horse. She’d walked until she dropped, and only then did he let her ride again. When she’d remounted, he’d tied her hands to the saddle horn. Cara could no longer remember how long ago that had been.
She waited on the horse while he dismounted. He came over and helped her down. Her legs buckled instantly; but for his hands she would have fallen. When he seemed certain she could stand on her own, he untied her hands. He left her to stand beside the horse while he strode off about fifteen paces into the fallow cornfield beside the road, where he looked around for a time, then found the trap door of a dugout. He returned to her and dragged her roughly through the field to the raised door. The pain in her arms and legs made her wince, but she bore it silently, consoling herself with the fact that at some point an opportunity to escape would present itself again.
The steps leading down into the dugout were rotten and split, the earth anchoring them soft and eroded. Cara had trouble sensing the supports as she hesitantly made her way down, and her hands were incapable of gripping the step above her head for purchase.
She made it down without mishap, though. Her hands, face, and clothing were covered with mud.
Miles had lit a lantern before descending. “You look lovely,” he offered. “Make yourself at home. Be right with you.”
Cara ignored the sarcastic compliment and surveyed her surroundings. A pile of supplies stacked in a corner proved he’d used this place before. He knelt before them now, evidently deciding what to take. The lantern beside him offered just enough illumination for Cara to see the dugout’s deteriorated state. At one time the place might have easily sheltered a family of five or six, but now one wall had completely caved in, cutting off access to whatever rooms lay beyond. Beside her stood one of the old black potbellied stoves. The rusted-out hulk had lost its signature stovepipe long ago, but Cara dearly wished it could be fired up to counter the shivers brought on by the chilly night air and the underground dampness.
“Miles, where is Laura?”
He turned. “Laura decided to return home. She’ll meet us later.”
Cara didn’t believe him for a minute. Laura hadn’t returned after Cara heard her calling Miles’s name during the argument back at the soddy. Cara had been left alone for quite some time after their voices faded away, and when Miles returned, he’d returned alone. Cara had asked then about Laura, and he’d given her this same explanation. She tried another tack.
“Why don’t you just let me go?”
“Because, my dear Cara, I need you to get my dear dead mother’s money.”
“And then what?”
“Who knows? Maybe we’ll sign on for Liberia.” He laughed.
“One more question?”
“Certainly.”
“How did you know about the gold shipments?”
“My poor ignorant mother, of course. I was helping her with her mail, since she couldn’t read, and I found a letter from a bank in Topeks. It showed a tentative schedule of when the coaches would be making the circuit to pick up or drop off gold. I waited about a week for the Topeka bank to send the definitive schedule they’d promised in the original letter, but I never saw it. Mae Dexter was also handling Mother’s mail during that time. My guess is Mae got to it first and took it straight to Mother. I searched her office and never found it, so I called Laura.”
“And she did it just because you asked her?”
“She did it because I told her I wanted to marry her.”
Cara stared. So Laura had been duped.
“She’d fallen for me back at Howard. Loved the fact that I was different from the men in her parents’ circle. I came from Texas; I ran poker games and had my firearm on the table when I played. She liked that. One of the reasons I was dismissed from Howard was because when the boys didn’t pay their poker debts, I’d go to their dormitory with my forty-five and persuade them to reconsider. She begged to go along with me on night. Ah, how that appealed to the little minx. Turned her wanton—especially on one of my debt-collecting nights.”
His eyes probed Cara and she looked away.
“So,” he continued lightly, standing now, “any more questions?”
Cara shook her head.
“Good. You can take this blanket and sleep over there. And while you’re dreaming of your soldier boy, remember this: Once we get my mother’s money and leave St. Louis, we’re going to California to be married.”
Cara’s eyes flashed.
“Wait, now.” he said patiently. “If you don’t want to marry me, I’ll turn you over to a friend of mine who owns a brothel on the Mexican side of the border. He’ll pay me top dollar for an educated brown beauty like you. Of course, once he gets his investment back, he’ll probably sell you to someone else, who will sell you to someone else. But by then, your looks will be gone—health, too, more than likely, and you won’t care.”
She couldn’t hide her shudder.
They were mounted and on the trail again just after sunrise. Cara was exhausted after a fitful night spent on the blanket in a corner of the damp dugout. Miles hadn’t offered her anything to eat and she hadn’t asked. She refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing her cringing and crying. Even with her hands tied to the pommel of the saddle, her face streaked with dirt, and her head dizzy from the lack of sleep and nourishment, she rode beside him defiantly.
As the sun rose higher in the sky, Cara tried to determine in what direction they were traveling, but the ordeal had begun to take its toll. She could no longer determine south from west or east from north. The horse beneath was moving, and that’s all she knew.
Blessedly, early in the evening, Miles stopped. Cara had ridden the last few miles like a corpse, slumped in the saddle. Only being tied to the pommel kept her from falling.
“Pretty hard ride,” she heard Miles say as if from a distance. “But you need to be broken like a wild filly. If it takes a week out here in the sun to do it, so be it, Cara dear.”
She felt the tension ease around her wrists, now tied with rope, then her arms were free. She moaned in pain as they were moved and her body was lifted from the horse.
“I’m going to set you down over here while I make camp. Don’t run away now.” He laughed.
And then later, “Cara, can you hear me?”
She opened her eyes slowly. Through cracked and swollen lids she stared up at the man’s face. She searched her mind for some explanation. Then came recognition, and she attacked him, clawing and screaming at him in a dry, hate-filled voice with all the strength she had left. She felt his hand hit her sharply across the face, sending sparks through her brain. He cursed her as he retied her hands and pushed her back down.
Leaving Carolina hidden in the tall grass, Chase approached the camp cautiously. His slow progress had more to do with his injuries than with a desire for stealth. Each step was agony as he dragged the broken limb along the uneven terrain. Sweat poured down his face; breathing had become hell, but he’d be damned if Cara would spend another hour in Sutton’s hands.
Tracking them had been a relatively easy task. Either from ignorance or overconfidence, Miles had not bothered to mask his trail. The pr
ints of the horse had been clearly visible in the earth of the old Indian path. He’d expected to lose the tracks when it got dark, and he had for a while, but he’d stayed on the trial. He figured Sutton would do the same until he came across a place to hole up for the night. Luckily, Chase’s intuition proved correct.
They were camped outside an old homestead not more than a few hundred yards away. Were he in better shape, Chase could simply walk down there, shoot Sutton, retrieve Cara, and be done. But he was in no condition for a fight. His only hope lay in going in after Sutton dozed off.
Chase gained the old shack without incident. His eyes swept the scene. Sutton lay snoring loudly on a bedroll by the dying embers of the campfire. It took all Chase’s willpower not to jerk him awake and stick a rifle up his nose, but he reminded himself, his main concern was Cara’s safety. He saw her, and his anger at Sutton warred with the blessed relief at finding her alive. She was seated with her back to an old fence post and her arms tied behind her. He could see the strain in her shoulders as she slept with her head tilted forward. Even in sleep she looked tired and defeated. Sutton would pay.
The hours Chase had spent on horseback had tightened his leg considerably, and the constant pain throbbed over every inch of his body. Cursing it, he moved as silently as he could around the sleeping Miles and over to his wife. Once there, he crouched as much as his injury permitted. Keeping a wary eye on Miles, he gently clamped a restraining hand across Cara’s lips. She startled awake as he knew she would. She fought him with a strength numbed by sleep and fatigue.
“Evenin’ ma’am,” he whispered.
Chase felt her go stock-still. She turned her head to him, and in the moonlight he saw the look of wonder on her face.
Cara had never heard such beautiful words. Her only regret was that her hands were tied and she couldn’t throw her arms around him or touch the lines of his face. He was alive!
Miles’s attack came out of nowhere. One moment Chase had been holding Cara as if he’d never let her go, and the next moment they were bowled over by Miles’s charging weight. The force slammed them to the ground. Cara came to rest a few feet away. She spent a few unfocused seconds trying to clear her head while Chase and Miles wrestled violently.