Chapter 6 - Men Who Once Rode Together
The third rider never reached the cabin.
A rifle shot cracked somewhere beyond the trees.
The horses outside screamed.
Alandre flinched.
Clayton looked toward the window.
That single distraction was enough.
Jed moved.
He struck Clayton’s wrist against the doorframe.
The silver revolver fell across the floor.
Alandre kicked it beneath the table.
Clayton drove his shoulder into Jed.
The two men crashed against a chair.
Alandre backed away, still holding the skillet.
“Stop!”
Neither listened.
Clayton was leaner, quicker.
Jed was stronger.
The fight lasted only seconds but seemed longer.
Jed finally pinned Clayton against the wall.
“Who’s outside?”
Clayton laughed through clenched teeth.
“You think I travel alone now?”
Jed hit him once in the stomach.
Not savagely.
Enough to end the laughter.
“Alandre,” Jed said. “Back room. Now.”
“No.”
“Go.”
“I am finished being ordered around by men hiding things from me.”
Jed looked at her.
Even in danger, something almost proud crossed his face.
Then a bullet struck the wooden shutter.
Alandre ducked.
Jed pulled Clayton away from the window.
“Back room.”
This time she went.
Jed dragged a heavy cabinet against the door.
Another shot hit the outside wall.
Clayton sat on the floor breathing hard.
“You’ve gotten domestic,” he told Jed.
Jed tied his wrists with leather cord.
“Where are your men?”
“Everywhere.”
“Helpful.”
“You used to appreciate my sense of humor.”
“I used to be stupid.”
Alandre emerged from the back room carrying Jed’s rifle.
He stared.
“I told you—”
“I heard you.”
“You know how to use that?”
“Thomas taught me.”
Jed took it only after she handed it over.
Outside, hoofbeats faded.
Whoever had fired was moving.
“Scout,” Jed said.
Clayton smiled.
“They’ll return.”
“How many?”
“Enough.”
Jed looked at Alandre.
“We need to leave.”
She shook her head.
“You’re going to explain the gold first.”
“Alandre.”
“No.”
Clayton grinned.
“I like her.”
Jed ignored him.
“The gold is from a stage robbery.”
Alandre’s face tightened.
“Yours?”
“Yes.”
Clayton added, “Ours.”
Jed looked at him.
“Thirty thousand dollars.”
Alandre stared.
The sum was unimaginable.
“Why keep it?”
“I didn’t.”
She glanced toward the floor.
“That looks like keeping.”
“I recovered it.”
“From where?”
“Clayton.”
Clayton’s expression hardened.
Jed explained.
“After I left the gang, I spent years trying to learn how many people we hurt. Some losses could never be repaid. Others could.”
“The gold?”
“Part of a payroll shipment we stole eight years ago. The mining company that owned it no longer exists. Most of what remained legally passed to workers who were never paid.”
Alandre understood.
“You were returning it.”
“Trying.”
Clayton laughed.
“Saint Jedodiah.”
Jed turned.
“You wanted it to fund the land scheme.”
“I wanted my property.”
“It was never yours.”
Alandre looked at the sacks.
“How much remains?”
“About twelve thousand.”
“And Thomas knew?”
“Yes.”
It clicked.
Thomas’s lockbox.
The stolen claims.
The missing payroll.
Everything connected.
Thomas had not stumbled onto one crime.
He had found the remnants of a network Clayton had built for years.
Alandre sat.
“My husband died because of paperwork.”
“No,” Jed said.
She looked up.
“He died because a greedy man believed other people’s lives were cheaper than land.”
Clayton’s face lost all humor.
“Careful.”
Jed ignored him.
Alandre looked down at Thomas’s letter.
“Where is the lockbox now?”
Clayton watched her.
Jed hesitated.
“I don’t know.”
“You told me Clayton wanted it.”
“He took the original.”
Clayton’s silence confirmed it.
“But Thomas wrote that he copied the records.”
Jed nodded.
“Those copies are what Clayton never found.”
“Where are they?”
“That’s what Thomas expected you to know.”
Alandre stood.
“I don’t.”
Clayton studied her.
“I used to believe that.”
Cold moved through her.
“And now?”
“You survived three months alone without anybody finding you. Then you walked straight to Jed Boone’s cabin.”
“I didn’t know where his cabin was.”
Clayton smiled faintly.
“Maybe Thomas made sure you would.”
Alandre looked at Jed.
“Did he?”
Jed shook his head.
“I never told Thomas exactly where I lived.”
“Then how—”
She stopped.
Thomas had given her something before they left Helena.
A map.
Not of Montana.
Of wildflowers.
At least that was what she thought.
He had drawn small symbols along the margins, teasing her about finally learning the names of mountain plants.
She had kept it tucked inside her sewing box.
The sewing box had survived because Clayton’s men had considered it worthless.
Alandre whispered, “The map.”
Clayton leaned forward.
“What map?”
She realized her mistake.
Jed did too.
His face became hard.
Clayton smiled.
“Well.”
Jed pulled Clayton upright.
“We’re leaving.”
“Where?”
“Anywhere you aren’t.”
Alandre grabbed her coat.
Jed reached beneath the bed and removed the gold.
“What are you doing?”
“If his men find it, every family Thomas tried to help loses twice.”
He divided the sacks into saddlebags.
Clayton watched.
“You can’t outrun winter and my riders.”
Jed looked at him.
“Don’t need to.”
“What’s that mean?”
Jed smiled for the first time since entering the cabin.
“I know this mountain.”
Clayton did not.
An hour later, with the storm deepening and Clayton tied across a packhorse, they left the cabin.
Alandre looked back once.
The place that had felt like safety now contained a broken chair, an open floorboard and every secret that had nearly destroyed them.
Jed rode ahead.
Alandre followed.
Between them hung grief, betrayal and one unanswered question.
Where had Thomas hidden the copies?
Then Alandre remembered something else.
Her husband had sewn the torn edge of her quilt himself the night before he died.
Thomas Collins had never sewn anything in his life.
She looked at the bedroll strapped behind her saddle.
Inside it was the quilt.
May you like
And suddenly she knew exactly where they needed to look.
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