Chapter 8 - The Price on Boon’s Name
By dawn, everybody had lost the argument except Martha.
Dr. Monroe declared the journey foolish.
Sergeant Turner called it legally unwise.
Boon used several words that were less polite.
Martha ate two biscuits, drank an entire cup of coffee, and packed her shawl.
“I’m going,” she said.
Dr. Monroe folded her arms. “If you start contracting again, you turn around.”
“Yes.”
“If you bleed, you turn around.”
“Yes.”
“If you become dizzy, feverish, short of breath, or if the child stops moving—”
“I turn around.”
“You do not argue.”
Martha looked at Boon.
“That condition seems unreasonable.”
“It’s the only sensible thing she’s said all morning,” he replied.
Martha gave him a thin smile.
He did not return it.
He had been angry since sunrise.
Not loud.
Boon was rarely loud.
His anger became quiet and efficient. He checked the wagon twice. Added blankets beneath the mattress. Repacked food. Filled every water skin. Re-shod one of the horses because he did not like the look of a nail.
Every movement said what his mouth refused to repeat: he did not want Martha on the trail.
She understood.
She was going anyway.
The problem was not only the land.
It was Jeb.
If he had carried Bell’s warning all those miles and kept it hidden from her, then whatever waited at Cottonwood Creek was part of the last road they had taken together. Martha could not sit in a doctor’s cabin while someone else dug through that final piece of his life.
And there was Boon.
She had begun to understand that the accusation against him was not a separate story. It was tied to Vale, Bell, and now her.
Pike had built a cage out of rumor for three years.
Martha knew what it felt like to be trapped inside a story other people told about you.
Widow.
Pregnant.
Helpless.
She was tired of it.
Sergeant Turner entered the yard just before they left.
He carried a saddlebag and a sour expression.
“I can’t go with you.”
Boon nodded. “Figured.”
“Commandant has me confined to post duties until this is settled.”
“Convenient.”
“Very.” Turner handed Boon a folded map. “But I can tell you where patrols will be for the next two days.”
Boon raised an eyebrow.
Turner added, “Purely because a civilian traveler should avoid getting lost.”
“Of course.”
“And this.”
He handed Martha a sealed envelope.
“What is it?”
“A statement from Dr. Monroe confirming your condition and need for medical consideration. If somebody tries to detain you on the road, show it.”
Martha tucked it into her bodice beside the ledger page.
“Thank you.”
Turner looked at Boon.
“Pike’s spreading word that you’re worth fifty dollars to anybody who brings you to the magistrate.”
Martha’s head snapped up.
“Fifty dollars?”
Boon shrugged.
“I’ve been insulted for less.”
“This is funny to you?”
“No.”
“You smiled.”
“I was thinking a hundred would’ve been flattering.”
Turner did not smile.
“Men have done uglier things for ten.”
That silenced them.
Boon climbed onto the wagon seat.
Martha settled inside among the blankets.
The trip to Cottonwood Creek would take most of a day if the road remained dry. Boon intended to make it in two, stopping often.
They left Fort Laramie by the southern track.
For the first hour, neither spoke.
Martha watched the fort disappear behind them through a slit in the canvas.
She had spent days dreaming of reaching those walls.
Now she was leaving them voluntarily.
Life, she decided, had a cruel sense of humor.
Around noon, Boon stopped beneath a stand of pines.
He helped Martha down.
She stretched carefully while he watered the team.
“You’re still angry,” she said.
“Yes.”
“At me?”
“Mostly.”
“At Pike?”
“Always.”
“At yourself?”
Boon looked at her.
She saw the answer.
“Why?”
“Because I should’ve stayed farther east when I saw you.”
Martha stared.
“What?”
“If I’d kept moving, Pike might not have connected you to me.”
“I was stranded beside a broken wagon.”
“Somebody else might’ve come.”
“Nobody had come for nearly a day.”
“Still.”
She stepped closer.
“Do you truly believe leaving me there would have been better?”
Boon’s jaw worked.
“No.”
“Then stop punishing yourself for the only decent choice available.”
His gaze dropped to the ground.
Martha softened.
“You do this often?”
“What?”
“Carry blame that belongs to other people.”
Boon gave a humorless laugh.
“Sometimes it belongs to me.”
“What happened at that warehouse?”
He stared toward the horses.
Martha waited.
Finally he said, “I broke in.”
“I know.”
“I found the notebook in Vale’s office. Before I could leave, I heard men downstairs. Pike and two others.”
“What were they doing?”
“Pouring kerosene.”
Martha went still.
“They burned it?”
“Yes.”
“With you inside?”
“Yes.”
Her anger changed shape.
“How did you get out?”
“Window.”
“Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
“I did.”
“And?”
“Pike had three witnesses saying they saw me enter with a lamp. Vale had a magistrate in his pocket. The captain who knew me had already transferred. I looked exactly like what they needed me to look like.”
“A guilty man.”
Boon nodded.
“What happened to the notebook?”
“I had it when I reached the window. Smoke got thick. I dropped it.”
“You thought it burned.”
“Yes.”
“Maybe Bell found it later.”
“Maybe somebody did.”
Martha watched him.
“Why didn’t Pike simply kill you?”
Boon looked at her sharply.
She regretted the bluntness but not the question.
He answered anyway.
“Dead men become mysteries. Disgraced men become warnings.”
The sentence chilled her.
Vale had not needed Boon dead.
He had needed nobody to believe him.
They resumed travel.
In the afternoon, the trail narrowed along low hills. Twice Boon stopped to study tracks.
“Riders?” Martha asked the second time.
“Three horses.”
“Following us?”
“Could be.”
“Pike’s men?”
“Could be.”
“You say ‘could be’ when you mean yes.”
“Could be.”
She glared at the back of his head.
Near dusk, they reached a rocky draw where Boon intended to camp.
He did not build a fire.
Martha did not ask why.
They ate cold biscuits and dried meat beneath a purple sky.
After dark, Boon moved the horses into a hollow invisible from the trail.
Martha sat wrapped in a blanket, listening.
The plains sounded different when you expected men to appear.
Every branch became a footstep.
Every owl call became a signal.
Boon sat ten feet away with his rifle across his knees.
“Sleep,” he said.
“You first.”
“I slept last year.”
“That explains your disposition.”
He almost smiled.
Martha lay down.
She did not sleep.
An hour passed.
Maybe two.
Then Boon raised one hand.
Martha froze.
Far above the draw came the soft clink of tack.
A horse snorted.
Then a man’s voice floated through the darkness.
“Mercer!”
Boon’s hand tightened around the rifle.
Another voice called from the ridge.
“Fifty dollars says you come out sooner or later.”
Martha’s heartbeat pounded in her ears.
Boon looked at her.
“Stay down.”
She whispered, “How many?”
He listened.
“Three.”
“The tracks.”
“Yes.”
Martha slid one hand beneath the blanket and found the kitchen knife she still carried.
Boon noticed.
For the first time that night, his expression softened.
“Still got that?”
“You knew?”
“First night.”
“And you said nothing?”
“Seemed to help you sleep.”
She nearly laughed.
Then a rifle shot cracked over the ridge—not aimed at them, but into the air.
The horses shifted nervously.
The bounty hunter called again.
“Last chance, Mercer.”
Boon looked toward the narrow eastern end of the draw.
Then he looked at Martha.
“We’re leaving.”
“Now?”
“Now.”
“In the dark?”
“Especially in the dark.”
Within five minutes, he had the team harnessed with almost no noise. Martha climbed into the wagon. Boon led the horses on foot through the shallow creek bed at the bottom of the draw.
Above them, the bounty hunters waited near the western entrance, expecting Boon to surrender or ride out toward the trail.
He did neither.
They traveled east under the ridge for nearly a mile before climbing back onto open ground.
Behind them, shouting broke out.
The hunters had discovered the empty camp.
Boon climbed onto the seat and drove.
Martha held the side rail as the wagon rolled beneath a moonlit sky.
“How far to Cottonwood Pass?”
“Six miles.”
“And then?”
“Then we find out if I still remember a road nobody else uses.”
Hoofbeats sounded behind them.
Martha looked back through the canvas.
Three dark shapes appeared on the ridge.
The bounty on Boon’s name had found them.
And this time there was no Army patrol coming.
Before they left the hidden draw, Martha made Boon promise one thing. “If those men catch us, you do not surrender just to keep me safe.”
He looked at her as though the request itself was unreasonable. “That depends.”
“No. It doesn’t.”
“Martha—”
“If you hand yourself over to men working for Pike, I will follow them to the magistrate and make such a public nuisance of myself that you will regret surviving.”
Boon stared.
Then, despite the darkness and the riders searching above them, he smiled. “That may be the most convincing threat I’ve heard.”
“Good.”
May you like
He offered his hand. “Then we both stay free.”
Martha took it. “Now that sounds like arithmetic.”
