Chapter 6 - The Man Who Came Looking for Her
They could not leave before dawn.
One saddle had burned.
The wagon harness was ruined.
Half the stored feed had gone with the barn.
Gideon spent the morning checking the horses while Clara carried water onto the last smoking beams.
At ten, Sheriff Bell arrived.
He took one look at the blackened structure and swore.
“Rusk?”
Gideon handed him the note.
Bell read it twice.
“That isn’t enough to arrest him.”
“I know.”
“Wish it was.”
“So do I.”
Clara stepped from the cabin.
Bell removed his hat.
“Miss Wynn.”
“Sheriff.”
“I’ve got worse news.”
Gideon’s stomach tightened.
Bell held up a folded document.
“Order from Judge Keene.”
Clara went still.
“What kind?”
“Temporary detention pending investigation of stolen business property.”
Gideon’s voice hardened.
“You came to arrest her?”
Bell looked miserable.
“I came to tell you I’m supposed to.”
Clara backed toward the cabin.
Gideon moved beside her.
Bell raised one hand.
“Listen first.”
They waited.
“The order says she’s to be transported south for a hearing.”
“Where?”
“Cheyenne.”
Clara and Gideon exchanged a look.
Bell noticed.
“What?”
“Nothing,” Gideon said.
Bell frowned.
“That was not a nothing look.”
Clara stepped closer.
“If I go with you, when?”
“Tomorrow morning.”
“Who transports me?”
Bell hesitated.
“Territorial marshal.”
“Name?”
“Ephraim Dodd.”
Clara’s face emptied.
“That’s Rusk’s man.”
Bell stared.
“What?”
“The one with the scar.”
Gideon said, “He works for Rusk.”
Bell cursed again.
“Then I’m not handing you over.”
“But the order?”
“I’m sheriff of Bitter Creek, not Keene’s dog.”
“You could lose your badge,” Gideon said.
Bell looked at the burned barn.
“Seems everybody’s losing something.”
They went inside.
Clara told Bell everything.
The ledger.
The deposit box.
Anna.
Judge Keene.
By the end, the sheriff looked ten years older.
“If this is true—”
“It is.”
“I believe you. But we need the ledger.”
“That’s why we were leaving.”
“With one usable saddle?”
Gideon said, “We’ll buy another.”
“Rusk has men watching town.”
“Then we don’t buy it there.”
Bell thought.
“My brother-in-law runs a ranch twelve miles east. I can bring you tack.”
“When?”
“Tonight.”
Clara shook her head.
“Too slow.”
Both men looked at her.
“Rusk knows we want Cheyenne,” she continued. “He burned the barn because he thought we’d travel by road.”
Gideon saw where she was going.
“You want another route.”
“Yes.”
“There’s no other safe route in this weather.”
“Safe isn’t the requirement anymore.”
Bell stared at her.
“You’ve been in Wyoming two days.”
“I’ve been afraid longer than that.”
Silence followed.
Clara looked at Gideon.
“I am done choosing whichever road frightens me least.”
Gideon felt something inside him shift.
The woman who stepped barefoot into Bitter Creek had looked broken.
She wasn’t.
Wounded, yes.
Exhausted.
Terrified.
But not broken.
There was steel under all of it.
By afternoon, they had a plan.
Bell would tell anyone asking that Clara had agreed to surrender the next morning.
Gideon and Clara would leave after dark.
Not south.
East first.
They would cross an old logging trail, circle around Bitter Creek, and reach the railway spur at Rockwater by dawn.
From there, they could take the train toward Cheyenne.
“If the line is running,” Bell warned.
“And if it isn’t?” Clara asked.
Gideon shrugged.
“We annoy the mountain again.”
She smiled despite everything.
At sunset, Bell returned with tack and a second saddle.
He also brought a revolver.
He offered it to Clara.
She stared at it.
“No.”
Bell looked surprised.
“I don’t know how.”
“I can show you.”
She shook her head.
“I don’t want it.”
Gideon said, “Then she doesn’t take it.”
Bell nodded.
No argument.
Clara looked at Gideon gratefully.
Two hours later they rode out.
Gideon took the lead.
Clara followed on the gentler mare.
Her feet hurt in the stirrups, but she said nothing.
They climbed through forest under a starless sky.
By midnight, snow began again.
At one in the morning, Gideon stopped.
“What?”
He pointed.
Tracks.
Fresh horse tracks crossing their trail.
Three riders.
Moving east.
Clara whispered, “They knew.”
“Maybe.”
“How?”
Gideon thought of everyone who knew the plan.
Bell.
Harlan Pritchard?
No.
Only Bell knew the route.
Unless someone had watched.
They continued more carefully.
Near three, they reached an abandoned logging camp.
Gideon dismounted.
“We rest twenty minutes.”
Clara slid down.
Her knees nearly failed.
Gideon caught her elbow.
She flinched, then relaxed.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.”
She sat on a stump.
Gideon checked the horses.
Then froze.
A piece of cloth hung from a nearby nail.
White.
Embroidered.
Clara saw it.
She stood.
“What is that?”
Gideon took it down.
A handkerchief.
Initials stitched in blue.
A.M.
Clara snatched it from him.
“Anna.”
“You’re sure?”
“I made this.”
Her hands shook.
“I stitched it for her birthday.”
Gideon scanned the darkness.
“Could Rusk have taken it?”
“Yes.”
“Would Anna have been here?”
“I don’t know.”
A branch snapped.
Gideon turned.
“Stay behind me.”
A figure stumbled from the trees.
Clara gasped.
A woman.
Thin.
Coat torn.
Hair covered in snow.
She made it three steps into the clearing before collapsing.
Clara ran.
“Anna!”
Gideon followed.
The woman lifted her face.
Clara dropped to her knees.
Anna’s eyes opened.
She recognized Clara.
Relief crossed her face.
Then panic.
“You can’t go to Cheyenne.”
Clara gripped her hand.
“Why?”
Anna struggled for breath.
“The box is empty.”
Clara stared.
“What?”
“Rusk moved the ledger.”
“Where?”
Anna’s eyes shifted toward Gideon.
“He knows about Cobb.”
Gideon crouched.
“How?”
“He’s been reading the letters.”
“What letters?”
“All of them.”
Anna grabbed Clara’s sleeve.
“He didn’t choose Gideon because he was a match.”
Clara went pale.
“What are you saying?”
Anna whispered, “Rusk sent you to him on purpose.”
The forest seemed to tighten around them.
Gideon’s voice became very quiet.
“Why me?”
Anna looked directly at him.
“Because of your land.”
And suddenly the fifty-dollar marriage arrangement was no longer the beginning of the story.
May you like
It was part of a plan that had started long before Clara ever stepped from the stagecoach.
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