Beauty From Ashes

by Lynnette Bonner

  Hunt folded his arms and leaned into his heels. He was a big man. At one time his girth had probably been all muscle, but now it was liberally padded with flesh. He had a white shock of hair and a skiff of a white beard covered his jaw like he hadn’t quite had time to shave yet this morning. “McGuff here tells me you can’t pay.”

  Kin felt sick. “No, sir.”

  “Thirty dollars. That’s a lot of money.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  They would beat him now. But that was okay. If there was anything living with his pa had taught him, it was that he could handle a beating.

  “By rights, I ought to beat you and make you work at shoveling outhouses around camp until you can pay me back. At fifty cents a day, that would be two months of work.”

  Kin felt a weariness drape over him. Always he failed. Always he made the wrong decisions. He didn’t reply to the man. He knew that wouldn’t do him any good. He kept his eyes down in a respectful manner and waited for the man to pronounce his judgement.

  “But I’m not going to do any of that, kid.”

  Kin lifted his eyes, not daring to give the hope that had just sprung to life too much root.

  John Hunt smiled, but there was something feral and wild about it that kept the light of it from reaching his eyes and sent a chill down Kin’s spine. Hunt leaned closer, his narrowed eyes drilling straight into Kin’s. “No, sir. I’m not going to do that because I’ve got a better way for you to pay me back, kid. And it will only take a couple hours of your time.”

  Kin swallowed. He didn’t like the sound of this at all. “How’s that, sir?”

  Hunt’s lips spread into a wide smile. “Why, kid, you are going to burn down the Wyldhaven church come Saturday.”

  Kin’s heart stuttered and then quit beating altogether for a few moments before resuming again at double speed. Saturday was the day of the sheriff and Miss Brindle’s party. At the church. Near everyone in Wyldhaven would be there.

  He shook his head. “I’ll have to do the outhouse shoveling for you, sir. I know that will take longer but—”

  Pain exploded in his kidney. With a grunt, he fell to his knees. Hunt’s man, McGuff, loomed over him from behind. Another blow shot arrows of fire through his ribs and sent him writhing to the floor. And then a boot stomped down on his thigh.

  Anger surged, and he flipped onto his back, ready to leap to his feet and fight back, but one glimpse of his attacker and he knew that he was beat. The man stood over him with a long wooden club in his hands. He had it raised and ready to smash into Kin’s face if he moved another muscle.

  Kin lifted his palms. “All right. All right.” He winced as he straightened the spasming muscle in his stomped leg. His mind scrabbled to think. He swiped at his lips with the back of his hand, more to buy time than anything, and was surprised when it came away bloody. He must have smashed his lips into something on his way to the floor. Climbing slowly to his feet, he leaned to the side and spat the metallic taste of blood from his mouth. What was he going to do?

  John Hunt clutched him by the hair. He jerked his head back and glowered directly into his face. “Don’t think, kid. That’s not your place. Your place is just to do as you’re told, understand?”

  Kin wanted to tell him where he should go, but even more than that he wanted to be able to walk out of here. So he kept his mouth shut and merely nodded.

  “Good.” Hunt released him and patted his cheek as though he were a young boy. “Good. I knew we’d come to an understanding.” He gave the bartender a nod.

  Kin watched warily as the man reached under the bar. Beads of sweat suddenly dotted the man’s forehead.

  Kin frowned. Was the barkeep afraid of Hunt? He spat more blood and kept silent, knowing there wasn’t much more he could do at this point.

  The bartender stood slowly, one careful inch at a time. His attention remained fixed on whatever he was lifting from behind the bar, cheeks puffed out in careful concentration. A bead of sweat dripped into his eye and he blinked hard.

  “Steady!” Hunt admonished.

  The bartender eased out the air that had rounded his cheeks and ever so gently set a wooden box onto the bar.

  Kin studied it. The box was only about six inches high. And it had nine smaller compartments that divided it into three even cubicles in each direction. In each small cubicle there was a glass vial surrounded by straw.

  Hunt leaned forward and gingerly lifted one of the vials from its bed of straw. He held it up for Kin to see. “You know what this is, kid? We’ve been keeping it on ice behind the bar.”

  The vial contained a clear liquid that could have been water, except it looked a little thicker. Oilier. He shook his head.

  “This is called nitroglycerin.”

  Kin’s pulse shot into a gallop. He stepped back, but immediately knew the gesture was foolish. He’d studied about nitroglycerin. It was the ingredient that gave dynamite its bang, but was even more deadly in its liquid form. If the temperature rose by even a few degrees, a simple jostle of the container could cause an explosion the likes of which would leave this entire saloon nothing but a crater in the dirt.

  Hunt took in his shock. “Ah, so you’ve heard of it, have you? That’s good. That knowledge might actually save your life.” He handed the vial in his hand back to the barkeep. “Prepare this one for travel with the lad here.”

  Kin felt woozy and nauseated. What had he gotten himself into?

  “There’s a party in town this Saturday, yes?”

  Kin nodded. Swallowed. He couldn’t seem to take his eyes off the vial that the bartender was wrapping in a red bandana. “Yes, sir. For the sheriff and Miss Brindle.” Sweat slicked his palms and he rubbed them against his denims.

  John nodded. “Just as I had heard.” From the trembling hand of the bartender, he accepted the vial, now carefully wrapped and packed in its own small crate stuffed with straw. Cautiously, he handed it to Kin. “It’s cold enough these days that they’ll definitely build a fire in the stove. All you have to do is set this behind the stove. And”—he chuckled—“you might want to make sure that you find an excuse to skip the lovely party for the sheriff and his bride.”

  Kin took the box and looked into the man’s eyes. “That’s it? And then I don’t owe you anything?” What was he saying? There was no way that he could blow up the church with the entire town inside it.

  John shrugged and nodded. “That’s it, kid.”

  Kin thought for another beat. He eyed the club in the hand of the man still standing next to John. He eyed the box in his hands. And then the thought hit him. If he declined to do what John wanted, he would surely take another beating and maybe even get blown up in the process. But if he agreed and took the vial and left, that didn’t mean that he had to follow through. He could walk out of here right now and no one would have to get hurt. He would even have a chance to warn Reagan and Joe about Hunt.

  He gave a short nod. “All right.”

  John folded his arms, settled into his heels, and gave him a hard look. “Don’t think you can walk out of here and run off without me knowing.”

  Kin swallowed. How was he going to get out of this if they were watching him the whole time?

  Hunt narrowed his eyes.

  Kin realized he would have to figure out answers later. Right now he just needed to get away from here and give this raging headache time to clear so he could think. He nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  “Right then. Be off with you. We’ll be watching, kid.”

  Kin eased out a breath and started for the exit.

  “Oh and… I wouldn’t risk the jostling of a horse with that nitro. Probably best if you walk back to town.”

  All the men in the bar cackled.

  Kin felt moisture dampening his collar before he’d even gotten his mount’s reins untied from the hitching rail. It was going to be a long walk back to town.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Aurora sat at the small kitchen table in the parson’s cabin with
her forehead propped in one hand. The numbers and words on the test the parson had left with her blurred and danced and fragmented through her tears.

  As soon as the parson had left to do his rounds, she had hurried through a much too chilly bath, changed into fresh clothes, and then dumped the water at the back side of the house so the men wouldn’t be any wiser to the fact that she’d bathed while they were out. Then she’d made the cookies as the parson had instructed for tomorrow’s gathering in town. And then she’d sat down to take the test the Wyldhaven schoolteacher wanted her to take so she would know where to place her.

  At first Aurora had been thrilled with the idea of attending school. She hadn’t been to school since the year she’d turned ten. And Ma hadn’t had the time to teach her much over the past several years. But she’d always loved learning and oh the joy that had filled her at the prospect of being allowed to return to school—even if she had to do so under the pretense of being a twelve-year-old boy. She’d planned to dumb down her answers to the questions on the test, but once she’d sat down to take it, she’d found the questions much harder than she’d anticipated. As a woman of seventeen years, she should know a lot more of the questions on the test, yet hard as she’d tried, she was utterly unclear on what some of the questions were even asking.

  Under the geography section, one question instructed her to name and give the boundaries of the five zones. That had been the first question on the test that made her tear up. But it wasn’t the only one, nor by far the last.

  In the mathematics portion, one question wanted to know how much a man had paid if he’d purchased a cord of wood for eighty-nine and a half cents per cord and the pile of wood he ended up with had been twenty-four feet long, four feet wide, and six feet three inches tall. How was she to do that figuring when she had no idea the size of a cord of wood in the first place?

  Under the grammar section, the test asked her to “Decline I.” She couldn’t even fathom what that might mean, but she certainly wanted to decline and that was certain. Decline the whole dad-blamed test!

  Kin gingerly carried the nitroglycerin until he was far enough outside of Camp Sixty-Five that the chance of anyone stumbling across it and blowing themselves up was extremely minimal.

  Despite the fact that Hunt had said he’d have men watching him, Kin hadn’t seen hide nor hair of anyone. He searched carefully up and down the road. No one was in sight.

  He stepped off the road, and tucked the box away near the roots of one of the seed trees. With that task seen to, he released a huge breath of relief and bent to prop hands against his knees. His legs were shaking worse than a newborn foal’s.

  Now he just had to decide how he was going to proceed.

  He stood for a long time staring at the box. Hang it all if he knew how he was going to get out of this predicament. He sank into a squat and plucked up a pinecone. He set to shredding it bit by bit as he glanced back in the direction of Camp Sixty-Five.

  Of course, he wasn’t going to take the nitroglycerin and blow up the church tomorrow. The people of Wyldhaven had rallied around him when his father had died, and he would no more hurt any of them then he would a newborn pup. His first inclination was that he should just ride out of town and keep on going. Hunt couldn’t hurt him if he couldn’t find him.

  But there were two problems he could see with that.

  The first was that despite his having given Parson Clay as rough a time as he dared, the man had taken him in after Pa’s death when he didn’t have to. He’d made a home for Kin, and Kin knew that had come with sacrifices. What kind of appreciation would it show if he just rode away without even saying a fare-thee-well to the man? Plus, the horse he was riding wasn’t his. And horse thieving was a hanging offense, even if riding off without goodbyes wasn’t.

  The second problem was that John Hunt would have a backup plan. Even though he hadn’t seen anyone following him, Kin knew Hunt was too savvy to simply trust that Kin was going to follow through with his instructions. The man had obviously set him up. And he likely had men watching even if Kin couldn’t see them. They were probably staying at a distance to keep from getting blown to pieces if something went wrong.

  Was his reputation so besmirched that Hunt had actually thought he could force him into such a sickening crime? Kin’s shoulders slumped. Whatever Hunt thought of him, he would never stoop that low. But maybe he could use that? If they thought he was low enough to do it, why not let them keep thinking that for a while longer? Because even if he could escape Hunt’s men, if he left without giving warning, he would still be responsible if anyone was injured or killed. The right thing to do would be to ride into town and report what had happened.

  After weighing out all of his options, he came down to the realization that he only really had one. And his gut crimped into a tiny hard ball because he had no idea how to pull it off.

  He had to somehow escape Hunt’s men without letting them know he was trying. Even this pause in his journey had probably already given them more insight into his reluctance than he would like. Maybe if he pretended to pick the vial back up, they would be fooled and keep their distance? He would take the road slow, like he was still carrying the nitro. Then once he got back to the forested area closer to town he would be able to lose them. He knew every little trail and gully in that area.

  A tingle raced along the back of his neck. He searched the surrounding hills again, but still he didn’t see anyone watching.

  He huffed. Hunt was probably all bark and no bite. But he couldn’t take that risk.

  He stood, brushed off the seat of his pants, bent and pretended to retrieve the vial from the box. He hoped his own red bandana, tugged from his pocket, would fool whoever might be watching through blurry field glasses. He went through the motions of pretending to put the vial into one of his saddle bags, and reached for his mount’s reins.

  Pain pierced his side at the same moment the crack of a rifle shot resounded.

  His mount whinnied and reared, yanking the reins from Kin’s hand. The horse landed stiff-legged, and then surged into a gallop down the road.

  Kin reeled a step back and glanced down. Blood seeped through his shirt and already soaked the top of his pants. He’d been shot!

  He had to get out of here. He took a step.

  But behind him footsteps crunched.

  Kin spun around.

  The man who had, earlier, followed him to the outhouse loomed, rifle raised like a club. “You should have done as you were told, kid. No one would risk riding a horse with nitro in the saddle bags.” The butt of the rifle smashed into Kin’s face.

  Everything went black.

  By the time Preston arrived back at the cabin, he was bone weary and discouragement was no small part of the reason. He didn’t like to be a failure. But no matter which way he tried to look at it he couldn’t get away from the fact that he had failed and failed big. Thankfully, Liora had been very forgiving and understanding. But now he faced the task of confronting Mrs. Hines and Mrs. King and maybe a couple other ladies in the church.

  He would have to do that tomorrow before Reagan and Charlotte’s congratulatory party, because it was too late to ride into town tonight, and he still had to put the finishing touches on the speech he had been asked to give. Not to mention the lad Rory had already been on his own for long enough today.

  He led his mount into the barn, stripped it of its saddle, and set to currying while he pondered the best way to go about said confrontation.

  If he were honest, he probably should have just ridden straight to town and gotten the ordeal over with, but confrontation had never been something he enjoyed. This delay wasn’t all bad, however. It would give him time to think through what to say to the women. And do some praying on the matter.

  He scooped two scoops of oats into the horse’s trough, made sure it had enough water, and then headed for the house.

  The sniffling coming from the dining room was his first clue that not all was well with Rory.
“Hang this whole dad-blamed test!” The sound of crumpling paper accompanied the words.

  “Rory, lad?” He stepped into the dining room. “You all right?”

  Rory scrambled to swipe tears from his cheeks and straighten from where he had been slumped at the table. He’d crumpled the test into one hand, but now rushed to smooth it out. “Yes sir. I’m fine. Had a bug fly into my eye is all.”

  Preston frowned as realization hit him. Here was another area where he had failed recently. The kid had told him that his ma and pa had died and that he was on his own. Preston had just assumed he’d been on his own for quite some time. But maybe the loss was more recent? The kid certainly had been very quiet since he’d come to stay. Preston had been so concerned with his search for the missing daughter of the woman who had passed away that first day, and then after that he had just sort of absorbed the kid into his world without really thinking too much about him.

  Now he approached the table and sank into the chair cattycorner from Rory. He glanced from the test to the boy’s face and back again. If only he was better at ferreting out information. Maybe he would be able to help the kid more competently. But it was obvious with Kin as an example, that he wasn’t very good at that.

  “Test a little harder than you expected it to be?”

  The kid shoved the test away. “I’ve done fine on my own without schooling up to this point anyhow. Don’t suppose I need it.” The lad was obviously trying to fight his emotions, but the tears kept coming and he kept swiping at them fiercely.

  Preston leaned forward to take up the test and that was when his nostrils caught the distinct whiff of fresh soap. He drew the test closer to himself, leaned against the slats of his chair, and scrutinized the kid.

  Rory’s hair had been washed because where it had been slightly greasy this morning it looked clean and wavy. And he was definitely wearing clean duds.

  The kid had taken a bath while he was gone? Well glory be! Kin had come to live with him when he was fifteen and it had taken several months of strong talks to get him to take a voluntary bath.