Trail of Passion (Hot on the Trail Book 7)

by Merry Farmer

  “Yes,” Lucy answered for Gideon.

  After a quick pause, Gideon echoed, “Yes,” far less certain. Or maybe he just didn’t want to be certain.

  “And you think he did this because Gideon was connected to his son’s death in the war,” Pete went on.

  “Yes,” Lucy answered again, lowering her eyes. “Although I personally think it’s a bit of a stretch to say that it was Gideon’s fault. Men die in war, one way or another, and you can’t really lay the blame at any one person’s feet.”

  She finished her short speech with a nod. No one responded. They walked on, Pete adjusting his hat, Gideon concentrating on the steps in front of him. He’d moved all of his things, including the crates of chemicals and the portable generator, into Lucy’s wagon on her insistence. Fate seemed to be drawing them closer and closer together, branding them as one for all intents and purposes, but none of it sat easily on his shoulders.

  He’d hardly slept a wink the night before. After the chaos of the fire came the confusing jumble of trying to figure out who saw what. One man swore that he’d seen a shadowy figure at the back of the wagon as the sun set. Another woman claimed it was two people. Viola went off about how it was one of the orphans. But the more they asked around in an attempt to find two stories that matched, there was only one detail that everyone agreed on. The wagon had been rocking—vigorously—so anyone who was camped within sight of it had politely looked the other way.

  Gideon’s lips twitched into a wry grin. It was nice to know he had neighbors that were willing to look the other way when he was misbehaving with Lucy, but it would have been nicer if someone had stared right at the wagon and seen who set the fire.

  “Well, I suppose there’s only one thing for it,” Pete sighed as he came to his conclusion.

  “What?” Lucy asked, eyes flashing in anticipation.

  “We’ll have to ask Leopold Diver flat-out where he was last night and if he set the fire.”

  “No, you can’t do that,” Lucy started to protest.

  It was too late. Leopold was walking beside one of the crew wagons, only a few yards in front of them, and before she could hold him back, Pete marched up to the man. With a knot of dread in his stomach, Gideon picked up his pace to catch up to the impending confrontation, Lucy at his side.

  “Mr. Diver, could I have a word,” Pete addressed Leopold.

  Startled, Leopold turned to him. When he saw Gideon and Lucy rushing to catch up, his expression went blank. “Certainly, Mr. Evans. What can I do for you?”

  Pete must have grasped the awkwardness of confronting a man about vandalism and arson. He winced, swiped his hat from his head, wiped his brow with his sleeve, then fixed his hat in place—all as they continued to walk.

  “Do you happen to remember where you were when Gideon’s wagon caught fire last night?” he asked.

  Gideon had to hand it to him, that was the gentlest way of accusing someone of being involved that he’d ever seen.

  “I was taking a walk around the perimeter of the camp,” Leopold answered. His brow darkened and he shot another look to Gideon and Lucy. It didn’t take much to tell that he knew he was being accused.

  “Uh-huh.” Pete nodded, ever the diplomat. “And did anyone see you taking a walk?”

  “It was dark,” Leopold said. “I suppose someone could have seen me, but I wouldn’t be surprised if no one did.”

  It was the perfect answer, an alibi that could reasonably have no witnesses. Gideon’s gut churned with the feeling that they were so close to a confession that they would never be able to fully get.

  “Anyone see you before you went for your walk?” Pete went on. “I mean, I know you ate supper with us in the crew camp.” He shot a glance over his shoulder with those words, catching Gideon’s eye.

  “I spoke with that boy,” Leopold said. “Miss Lucy’s friend, Alvin.”

  “Alvin?” By her tone, Lucy was horrified by the idea of her special friend speaking to an attempted murderer.

  “Yes.” Leopold’s voice was flat. “He explained to me that he was upset because he’d asked Miss Lucy to help with his sums, and she told him she’d already promised her time to Dr. Faraday.”

  Lucy gasped. “I forgot.” She sent Gideon a mournful look. “I forgot I said I’d help him with those over breakfast today. Oh, he must be so disappointed with me.”

  “Don’t worry,” Leopold said. “I helped him.”

  “You?” Gideon and Lucy answered at the same time.

  Leopold flinched at the accusation in their tone, his expression darkening even more. “Yes, me. I have experience helping a small boy with his homework, if you will remember.”

  Gideon was sure he meant his statement to be sharp, but his voice faltered at the end. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled, guilt and the memory of Michael Diver’s portrait inside the locket lashing him. “Of course.” He fell back by a few steps.

  “So, nobody else saw you last night?” Pete went on with his questions.

  “Not until I came to help with the fire,” Leopold answered. “What is this all about? Am I being accused of wrongdoing?” he glanced back to Gideon with a withering look.

  “No one’s accusing anyone of anything,” Pete assured him. “We’re just trying to get a picture of what happened. Thanks for answering our questions.”

  He stopped walking, and Gideon and Lucy were forced to stop too. The wagon train rolled on, Leopold with it. Leopold gave them one last, scathing look before marching on, shaking his head.

  “Well,” Pete said, but didn’t have anything to follow.

  “I still think he did it,” Lucy said.

  “No one saw him do anything,” Pete reminded her.

  “But no one didn’t see him do anything either,” Lucy argued.

  Pete sighed, shifting his weight to one hip and shaking his head. Gideon had half a mind to sigh with him. They were no closer to proving Leopold’s involvement than they had been that morning. All they had to go on was a hunch.

  “Tell you what,” Pete continued. “I’ll keep asking around. There’s bound to be someone who saw something. Wagon trains aren’t that big.”

  “Thanks for all your help,” Gideon said. He couldn’t think of another reason to hold Pete up.

  As soon as Pete left, walking on to check on the thousand other things in the train that were his responsibility, Gideon returned to walking at an ambling pace by Lucy’s side. Estelle had offered to drive Lucy’s wagon while the two of them sought out clues in the arson, so they were able to step slightly aside from the rumbling, rattling wagons to walk on their own.

  “We’ll figure out how to nab him,” Gideon tried to reassure Lucy.

  “I’m sure we will,” she agreed. “It’s only a matter of time. Men who are that intent on revenge are bound to trip themselves up eventually. Why, Papa had a neighbor a couple years back who was furious because Papa bought some land that he wanted. He tried to get back at Papa by poisoning our well, but he dropped the bottle that contained the poison on his way over and ended up making himself sick.”

  She peeked at him to see if the story had had any impact. Gideon smiled, but his heart was still troubled.

  Lucy sighed and went on. “I’m angry with myself for forgetting about Alvin. He’s such a sweet boy, and it’s tragic that the families he’s ended up with so far haven’t been kind to him. We really should do something to make it up to him.”

  “We?” As far as Gideon could tell, Alvin wasn’t the least bit impressed with him. It was Lucy who he loved.

  “Yes.” She looped her arm through his and hugged it as they strolled. “I know we’re not in a position to adopt a child the way that Estelle and Graham are intent on adopting Tim.”

  Gideon’s collar felt too tight at the very thought of adopting a ten-year-old.

  “But the least we could do is spend time with him, show him that there are good, decent folks in the world.”

  A grin tweaked the corner of Gideon’s mouth. “Us? Goo
d, decent people? Do you think the rest of the wagon train thinks that about us after seeing the wagon in motion last night?”

  Lucy blushed and chuckled. “Well, we’re good at heart, even if we enjoy being bad from time to time.”

  He couldn’t help but laugh at that. As far as he could tell, it was true. It was a blessed relief that one of the primary things he’d heard about the West was that most folks turned a blind eye to a little bit of wickedness now and then, as long as it wasn’t criminal.

  “All right,” he said. “Let’s invite Alvin to spend some time with us. At the very least, we can ask him what he saw last night.”

  Because the wagon train made good time that day, Pete stopped for the evening earlier than usual. Lucy secretly hoped it was because he planned to make his rounds amongst the families in the train, quizzing them about what they’d seen and if anyone had tracked Leopold’s movements. She was just happy that Alvin looked like he would forgive her when she approached him about having supper with her and Gideon.

  “Gideon tells me he has a treat in store for us, that we’re going to catch our own supper,” Lucy informed him, beaming as the two of them walked up the line of camps from the Jackson family wagon to hers.

  “Okay,” Alvin replied. He walked with his hands in his pockets and his shoulders slumped, not looking at her. His mouth was turned down in a pout, and Lucy worried that he was paler than usual.

  On second thought, perhaps he was still angry with her for forgetting his sums.

  When they reached her wagon, Gideon surprised them by presenting them with a fishing pole.

  “Fishing?” Lucy balked. She glanced around at the flat, open prairie. “Gideon, there isn’t a lake or an ocean or even a pond anywhere for miles.”

  She peeked at Alvin, expecting him to add some sort of comment about how stupid it was to go fishing on the plains, but Alvin kept silent, hands in his pockets.

  “It isn’t for catching fish,” Gideon told them, a spark in his eyes. “It’s for catching something else.”

  That provoked a response from Alvin. He tilted his head to the side and glanced up at Gideon. “What else?”

  Gideon smiled in relief. “You’ll see. We have to go out searching first.”

  “Searching.” Lucy tugged one of Alvin’s hands out of his pockets and held it. “How exciting. It sounds like it could be dangerous.”

  Gideon laughed as they started out away from the wagon train, across the scrubby plain. “I would have thought you’d had your fill of danger by now, Miss Lucy.”

  “There’s danger and then there’s danger,” Lucy replied. “One is decidedly better than the other.”

  They made their way slowly out across the sunbaked land. Gideon kept his eyes on the ground, frowning and squinting as they crossed yard after yard. Lucy didn’t have a clue what they were looking for. When she’d asked Gideon earlier what activity they had planned to entertain Alvin, he’d been close-lipped about it. As they walked, she glanced alternately at him and the ground, waiting for something to catch her eye. Gideon certainly caught her eye. He was looking rugged and desirable these days—tanned with a windswept look to his hair and purpose in his eyes. She didn’t think it would matter if they spent a thousand nights together, she would always look forward to the feel of his arms around her, his body flush against hers, his—

  “There,” he clipped, just as her thoughts were going down a dangerous path of their own. “Right there.”

  “That hole?” Alvin asked. He let go of Lucy’s hand and scurried to where Gideon had stopped and squatted.

  Lucy skipped to catch up to them. Sure enough, there was a hole in the ground, wide enough for her to stick her arm down if she’d had a mind to. “What is it?”

  “Prairie dog burrow,” Gideon explained. “By the look of things, it’s inhabited. Good.”

  “Are you going to drop a hook into the ground and catch a prairie dog like a fish?” Lucy laughed.

  Gideon shook his head. “Not a hook and not like a fish. Here.” He stood and took a step back, shifting the fishing pole from one hand to the other. With the butt of the pole resting on the ground, he pulled a length of fishing line out from it and held it toward Alvin. “Have you learned how to tie a slip-knot yet?”

  Alvin’s expression shifted from suspicion to curiosity to the faintest smile. “Yeah.”

  “Show me.”

  Alvin took the end of the fishing line and worked it into a tiny slip-knot. It took him several times since the line was so thin, but he finally managed to make a tiny loop at the end. When he handed it back to Gideon, Gideon poked his finger into the loop, then two, and gently worked the loop until it was several inches across. Just about the size of a prairie dog hole.

  “Now to catch out dinner,” he said.

  As he and Alvin crept closer to the hole, laying the looped end of the fishing line around it, Lucy planted her hands on her hips. “I am not eating prairie dog for supper.”

  “Why not?” Gideon shrugged. “It’s fresh meat, not canned beans or jerky.”

  He had a point there, but still. Prairie dogs were rodents.

  Whatever objection Lucy might have to eating prairie dog, she didn’t object to the fascination of trying to catch one. Gideon drew more line out of the fishing pole, walking it several yards away to a thick tuft of grass. He lay the pole down, then followed the line back to the hole. With Alvin helping, he made sure the loop at the end of the line fully circled the mouth of the hole. Then he stood and reached into his pocket.

  “I brought along a bit of carrot from the supplies Estelle bought at Ft. Laramie,” he explained.

  As he pulled the carrot out of his pocket, something else tumbled out as well. Something silver and oval. The locket.

  “What’s that?” Alvin scooped down and picked it up as Gideon placed the bit of carrot outside the edge of the loop of fishing line around the prairie dog hole. “It’s pretty.” He turned to Lucy to show her, a smile on his face.

  “That’s not something to play with,” Gideon said, just a bit too suddenly. “Give it back.”

  Alvin scowled, all of the careful work of building trust that Gideon had done destroyed.

  “Please?” Gideon added.

  “You’d better give it back,” Lucy added. “It’s… it’s valuable.”

  Grudgingly, Alvin handed over the locket. He crossed is arms with a scowl and marched away from Gideon, taking up a place by Lucy’s side. “He’s mean.”

  “Oh, sweetheart, Gideon isn’t mean. He’s just trying to keep it safe for somebody,” Lucy insisted.

  “For you?” Alvin asked, his crossed arms loosening. “Do you like it? Do you want it?”

  “It’s pretty,” she laughed. “But it doesn’t belong to me.”

  That was the end of it. Gideon measured out the fishing line, then marched back to where he’d left the rod. He gestured for Lucy and Alvin to come join him. In no time, the three of them lay on the ground on their stomachs, propped up on their elbows. Gideon positioned the fishing rod in his arms, testing to be sure the line was as taut as it could be.

  “What do we do now?” Lucy asked, itching with excitement.

  “We wait,” Gideon told her.

  And wait they did. The sun sank lower along the horizon. Lucy’s stomach began to growl and her back to get stiff. She caught herself wondering if prairie dogs were smarter than Gideon and if they knew exactly what the three of them had in mind.

  “Why isn’t it coming out of the hole?” Alvin grumbled, squirming between the two of them.

  “It will, be patient,” Gideon assured him.

  “I want to see it come out now.”

  “He’s waiting for us to get bored,” Gideon told him. “The trick with prairie dogs is to outlast them. Once it thinks we’ve lost interest, then it will go for the carrot.”

  “I don’t know,” Alvin huffed.

  “Let’s talk about something else so that it thinks we’re not paying attention,” Gideon sugges
ted.

  “Like what?” Lucy asked.

  “Like… like Mr. Diver,” Gideon suggested, smooth as silk. He glanced sideways at Alvin. “What do you think about Mr. Diver?”

  A sly grin spread across Lucy’s face. Leave it to Gideon to come up with a way of killing two birds with one stone.

  “He’s okay.” Alvin shrugged.

  Lucy’s grin dropped. “Okay?”

  Alvin shrugged again. “He helped me with my sums.”

  Guilt pinched at Lucy’s gut worse than the ache in her back from lying on the ground. “I’m so sorry I forgot, sweetheart. The fire just pushed it right out of my mind.”

  Alvin flushed bright pink and lowered his head. “I went to find you, but you were busy. So Mr. Diver helped me instead.”

  Lucy frowned. “At breakfast?”

  Alvin nodded, sinking further to the ground.

  “But not before the fire?” Gideon asked.

  Alvin shook his head.

  “Did you see Mr. Diver before the fire?” Lucy shifted to look more closely at Alvin’s face.

  “That’s when he said he’d help me,” Alvin mumbled.

  “But he didn’t actually help you right then?”

  Alvin shook his head.

  Lucy glanced across to Gideon. He met her eyes with the slightest of nods. So much for Leopold’s alibi. They were right back to his word that he’d been on a walk versus the fact that he had means and a motive for both incidents.

  Lucy was about to open her mouth and say more when a flicker of movement at the prairie dog hole snagged her attention.

  “Look,” Alvin whispered.

  “Shh.” Gideon waved for them to hunker down. “He needs to come out a little farther.”

  They waited. Lucy held her breath, everything else forgotten. The prairie dog poked its head up, sniffing. His beady eyes focused on the carrot. His nose twitched. He ducked back into his hole for a moment, then poked his head up higher, bolder. Gideon tightened his hold on the fishing pole, winding the line until it was taut. Lucy and Alvin stared, as intent on the prairie dog as it was on the carrot. It inched farther out of the hole, farther, reaching for the carrot.