Autumn Sage

by Genevieve Turner

  That expression, those words—her entire family had the exact reaction when she’d told them. A resigned defeat, worn by all. They’d known she would fail—they didn’t blame her.

  They’d thrown off their defeat when she’d said the words she told Joaquin next: “He’s—McCade—he’s here. In Cabrillo.”

  “What?” Joaquin’s horror at the news was deeper, sharper than her family’s had been, his mouth opening into a wide gash as he spoke.

  “He followed me here—the marshal thinks he means to harm me.”

  “Why aren’t you at home then,” Joaquin demanded, “under your father’s and brother’s guard? Isabel, if he comes here, I can’t protect you!”

  She pressed her fingertips into the doorframe, taking comfort from the unyielding wood beneath them. “Juan knows that McCade is here. You know what he’ll try to do.”

  The look on her brother’s face as he’d stalked from the room spoke to his grim determination. He would punish McCade, make no mistake.

  She’d fled to her room right after Juan had left, pleading a headache. Then she’d gone in search of Franny.

  Thank goodness her sister had been easy to convince—no blather about how mad Isabel’s plan was, how Isabel ought to be keeping safe in the house—just steady determination as Franny had helped her prepare for their journey. They’d ridden hard for the sanatorium.

  Joaquin’s jaw worked in stiff jerks. “I’m not a sheriff any longer. I can’t stop Juan.”

  This was what she must wrestle with if she wished to win him over, this terrible resignation to doing nothing, being nothing. “You cared about justice. Once. I believe you still do.”

  He raised a cold gaze. “Perhaps now I care about vengeance more.”

  Vengeance. She had to admit it sounded delicious. But would it still be delicious in the cold light of morning, knowing her brother had killed a man for her?

  “I don’t believe that,” she said stoutly. “You can become the man you once were. You have only to take the first step.”

  She crossed the room to tug at his hand.

  “I can hardly leave this bed.” He pulled his hand away, set his face from hers. “I won’t be taking any steps.”

  She was losing him. She wouldn’t convince him to leave this bed, wouldn’t stop them from killing McCade—she had nothing left.

  “You don’t have to walk far,” she said. “We have the wagon.”

  She cringed at the pitifulness of that. A wagon.

  He laughed humorlessly. “You think this is about the wagon? You think you’ll just drive me up and I’ll yell for everyone to go home?”

  “I have a plan.”

  She watched his face carefully as she sketched it, waiting for the skepticism to ease.

  It never did.

  “That’s leaving quite a bit to chance,” he said. “If we arrive in time, if they even believe it, if McCade doesn’t shoot someone first—none of it is near certain.”

  “We have to try, even if we’re destined to fail. You used to believe that.”

  There, that flicker. Some part of her words was reaching him. She caught up his hand again.

  “I know this man hurt us”—tears closed round her throat—“hurt us so much. But we can’t let our family and neighbors take his blood upon their hands. His father won’t hesitate to prosecute those involved. I can’t see my brother go to prison.”

  Her voice splintered on the word prison.

  “I don’t know…”

  He was considering it. She’d gotten him as far as consideration—only a little farther to go.

  “Please.” She put everything she’d once felt for Joaquin into that, praying he’d remember the man he’d been before.

  His hand remained loose in hers. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you beg before,” he mused. “It doesn’t suit you.” He sighed deeply. “Very well. I’ll do it. For you.”

  Thank the Lord and all his saints. She pressed his hand and he squeezed back.

  Oh, this might work after all—but they must hurry. How to get Joaquin out to the wagon, where Franny waited for them?

  Isabel was looking wildly about the room when the little nurse appeared in the doorway.

  “Why is someone shouting—oh. It’s your fiancée.” The flatness of the nurse’s voice spoke to how unwelcome she found Isabel. “I’m sorry, miss, but you’ll have to leave. It’s time to settle the patients for the night.”

  “No,” Isabel ordered. “You’ll prepare him to come with us. You’ll come along too, to attend to him.”

  “What? I can’t do such a thing. Are you mad?”

  There was no time for this nurse’s objections. “Yes, I am,” Isabel insisted. “Now hurry. A man’s life depends on it.”

  Perhaps several men’s.

  The nurse crossed her arms. “No. If you don’t leave, I’m calling an orderly. You can’t upset the routine like this.”

  No. Isabel had not come all this way to be thwarted by this nurse. She prepared to lash the nurse with—

  “Do it.”

  They both turned to stare at Joaquin.

  “But, you...” The nurse dropped her arms, clearly flustered. “You can’t leave.”

  “Yes, I can. Now help get me out of this bed.” He held out an imperious hand to her. “And stop arguing.”

  Isabel allowed herself a moment to savor Joaquin’s resolve, then gestured them to the door.

  This was only the first of many battles tonight—the first and the easiest.

  The worst was yet to come.

  In the end, finding McCade had been easy.

  Sebastian discovered his trail running along the creek, going up the mountain. McCade had avoided the road, using the creek to guide him, staying under cover. But clearly not expecting anyone to follow him.

  Sebastian came across his hiding spot not half a mile from the Rancho Moreno. McCade’s shock when Sebastian appeared was almost comical.

  But McCade quickly dropped his surprise and put on a mocking smile. “Come to fetch me home again? You’ve nothing to charge me with this time.”

  That smile was a curve of razor wire against Sebastian’s nerves. “Can we drop the pretense?” he demanded. “We both know you did it.”

  “Trying to force another confession from me?” McCade asked lazily. “I told you, it won’t work. The jury found me innocent.”

  “It found you not guilty, which is another matter entirely.” His voice dropped to a growl. “Whatever you had planned for her, you can forget.”

  McCade’s smile went sly. “So it was true? You’re sweet on that prune-faced hag? I never.” He shook his head. “I want nothing to do with her. I’m only here for my horse.”

  Sebastian permitted himself half a moment to imagine breaking the man’s jaw for the prune-faced hag comment, then put on his own air of disinterest. “Your horse. Which is why you’re lurking outside her house.”

  “Lost my way.”

  He ought to leave this fool right where he was—but Isabel’s entreaty and his own conscience wouldn’t allow it.

  “You’ll lose your life if they catch you here,” he warned. “They wanted to hang you before the trial—they’ll be ravenous for your blood now.” Perhaps an understanding of the threats assembling against him would turn McCade serious.

  “They wouldn’t dare,” McCade sneered.

  Or perhaps not.

  “They know who my father is,” the other man went on. “He’ll see every man in this town hanged if anything happens to me.”

  “And if you’re never found?” Sebastian pointed out. “If your body happens to end up somewhere in the desert on the far side of these mountains? They’re not going to make a public spectacle of it. It’ll be quiet—but probably not quick.”

  McCade’s face sagged as the joviality left it—an unmarked grave in the desert clearly rattled him. “You won’t stop them?”

  She’d told him to stop them. She’d commanded him.

  But Sebastian was
tempted not to. With his control as frayed as it was, he was sorely tempted.

  “Of course I’ll stop them,” he said. “I’m sworn to uphold the law.” And I swore to her. “Now let’s get out of here.”

  He gestured for McCade to go before him, out of the brush.

  “If I don’t go?”

  Saints above. He’d just explained what would happen if the mob caught the man—and still he fought.

  He crowded toe to toe with McCade, enjoying the shrinking of the other man’s shoulders. “I’ll handcuff you,” Sebastian snarled in his face, “and haul you down the mountain. Threats of your father’s power won’t stop me.”

  Before, he’d never have done such a thing, let his anger run so clear and free—or use that anger to cow another.

  “You want to ride down that mountain at night?” McCade asked, his swagger entirely gone.

  “Would you rather wait here for the mob?”

  “No, I wouldn’t.” McCade’s expression flattened. “But we won’t have to wait.”

  He jerked his chin toward a spot somewhere beyond Sebastian’s shoulder.

  Sebastian turned and saw the torches. There looked to be about a dozen, bobbing in the dark like malevolent, determined fireflies. The licking whoosh of the flames and their footsteps were the only sounds in the dark.

  The mob had come.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Sebastian’s hand went for his pistol as he crouched to snatch up his shotgun.

  He’d put on a confident front for McCade, but he wasn’t sure he could hold the mob off. He’d done it before, but they’d be even more determined now.

  Truly, it was understandable. The man had injured two of their own and gotten away with it. The only justice McCade would see would be at the end of their rope.

  But the law called that vigilantism, and he remained an officer of the law.

  Which put him in the absurd position of protecting the attacker of the woman he loved. Of course, he might yet find himself in the even more absurd position of dying for the attacker of the woman he loved.

  “McCade, come out! We see you there.”

  The man’s voice caught at Sebastian’s memory, but it was too muffled to snag upon its owner in his mind. He tightened his grip on the pistol and considered his options, of which there weren’t many.

  He released the pistol grip and raised the shotgun instead. He prayed that it and the badge on his chest would be enough to run them off.

  If it wasn’t, he might find himself hanging from an oak right next to McCade. His neck itched at the thought.

  He stepped out of the brush into the clearing.

  The full moon illuminated a dozen men wearing burlap hoods, all carrying torches and rifles—except for one, who was carrying a rope.

  They’d come prepared.

  They were about to find out he was prepared as well.

  He pumped the shotgun, the slide and click catching every man’s attention as he stepped from the shadows. He waited, his heart steady and his nerve strong, letting the shotgun and his badge to speak for him.

  A man moved forward, tacitly designating himself the leader. “You’d best move aside, Marshal. We’re here for McCade, but we won’t hesitate to go through you to get to him.”

  That voice. He knew it. Dear God, let him be wrong about who it was.

  “You know I can’t allow you to do this.”

  The leader’s head cocked, making him look like a curious scarecrow. “Allow? Who put you in charge?”

  Sebastian tapped his badge with his free hand. “This. I’m sworn to uphold the law, and hanging a man is certainly against the law, no matter what you think he’s done. Or what he might deserve. The court found him not guilty.”

  “So you think Obregon’s a liar? That Isabel’s a liar?”

  Isabel. Why did you have to use her name, you idiot? I could have at least pretended not to know you before that.

  “It doesn’t matter what I think,” he answered. “The law says he’s a free man, and I’ve sworn to uphold that. You all need to disperse. McCade and I will be gone tonight.”

  The mob muttered and stirred, but their leader stood resolute. “We only have a few hours to get him strung up, then?”

  The hint of amusement in the voice sent Sebastian’s temper close to breaking. Did he think this some kind of joke?

  Sebastian tightened his grip on the shotgun.

  And paused.

  Simple enough to step aside and let the mob have their way. No one would blame him for failing to fend off a dozen armed men. Most importantly, Isabel would be safe forever.

  Easiest of all would be to pull out the pistol, turn, and put a bullet right between the man’s eyes himself. He wanted to, wanted it more than his next breath. The pistol at his hip sang a siren’s song to him, urging him to wreck upon those rocks.

  And who would stop him? None of these men here. His father’s name would be protection against any punishment.

  As for Isabel, she would turn from him forever if she knew the truth—but given her silence on the train, she’d done that already.

  If he killed McCade, he would know for certain she was safe.

  He could live the rest of his life alone, unloved, unfeeling, if he knew she was safe.

  He lowered the shotgun from the cradle of his chest.

  And aimed it right at Isabel’s brother.

  “I don’t believe that’s what I said at all.” As cold and hard as the shotgun in his hands. Sheer nerve on his part might yet win this encounter.

  The mob leaned away as the barrel of the shotgun swung around. When the shotgun stayed steady on their leader, they stayed back.

  Good. Go home.

  But while the mob shrank back, the leader—her brother—stepped forward, until his chest was a few inches from the barrel. For the space of several breaths he and Sebastian waited for the other to break, each knowing the stakes should the other cry off first.

  Then Sebastian felt it turn. The mob, in that queer way mobs had, came to a decision.

  They were deciding against him. It was as simple as a slight tilt toward him, but all they had to do was lean a little harder, and then they’d be taking those first steps toward him, to shove him aside, or worse, seize him…

  The thrum of a horse’s hooves, coming toward them at speed, shattered the moment and turned every head.

  The rider held a lantern aloft as the horse ran hell for leather, her skirt whipping behind her. She rode like an Amazon, her shouted words indistinct until she closed in on them.

  “Stop! Stop!”

  She pulled the horse to a halt and leapt off, transfixing every man there.

  Sebastian wanted to close his eyes and pray that when he opened them again, she would prove to be nothing more than a mirage.

  For if she were real, he would have to shoot her brother right in front of her.

  “Stop!” Isabel shouted it one last time, her hair wild and her breathing quick.

  The men merely stared.

  “He deserves to die.”

  She gave a small start at the sound of the leader’s voice, but otherwise betrayed no other signs of recognition.

  That tiny flinch was all Sebastian needed to confirm the truth.

  “I don’t want this.” Her voice vibrated with conviction.

  The leader gestured to the outlaw. “You want him to go free?”

  She hesitated. “No. But it’s not for me to decide. I don’t want any of you punished because of this. You are all too dear to me.”

  She glanced at Sebastian at that last, but her gaze slid away as soon as it touched his.

  “The only person here that’ll be punished is that animal,” her brother said. “And this marshal if he doesn’t get out of the way.”

  “You don’t understand.” A familiar irritation snuck into her voice. “It’s a trap, set by the new sheriff to catch out what he called the ‘vigilante element’.”

  “How do you know that?” the leader
demanded.

  “Because he told me about it.”

  Joaquin Obregon appeared from the shadows, leaning heavily on a cane.

  The mob gasped as one.

  “Sheriff Williams,” Obregon spat out, “came to me asking if I would name the ‘troublemakers’ here in Cabrillo. I informed him the only troublemakers were the Carey boys and I’d taken care of them. He said I was lying and he would flush out any others like a dog with a quail.” He gestured to the entirety of the scene before him. “McCade was the perfect bait. As soon as you lay hands on him, the sheriff and his posse will come out”—he pointed to the darkness surrounding them—“and arrest you all.”

  A prickling broke out on Sebastian’s neck. He judged the distance between himself and Isabel, knowing he couldn’t reach her in time if shooting broke out. But if he moved closer, the mob could take that as their cue to strike.

  For a few moments, there was only the breathing of the mob, the wind sighing in the trees, and the heaviness that came to men when they knew they were within the sights of a gun.

  “Please, don’t do this to avenge me.” The spell was shattered by Isabel’s plea. “The Lord said vengeance was his.” She turned to stare at McCade, something terrible burning in her eyes. “God will punish this man. Perhaps not in this life, but certainly the next. We must all trust in that.”

  She stared at her brother, fierce enough to strain Sebastian’s heart.

  The hood concealed his expression, but the line of her brother’s shoulders eased. After a time, he sighed, going as limp as the scarecrow he resembled. “Fine,” he allowed. “But if we see McCade here again, I swear by all that’s holy, nothing will stop us from hanging him.”

  Sebastian saw the concession for what it was and took it. “He’ll never come back here again. I’ll make certain of that—personally.”

  The leader gave a short nod. “We’re only moving off because Isabel asked. I’d have shot you to get at McCade otherwise. And to hell with a sheriff’s posse.” He looked to the trees, limned in ink. “If they’re even there.”

  With that, the mob followed him as he moved off, the torches licking at the night air.