After some time, Austin heard the distinctive sound of a horse approaching. He checked the coffee. It was ready. He took the pot from the stove and placed it on the table with the mugs. A loud knock sounded on the door.
“It’s open. Come on in,” Austin called, pouring coffee into each mug. He held up the pot. “Thought you might need a cup to ward off the chill.”
“I do,” Robert agreed. “Pa said it got down to thirty-five degrees last night.” He rubbed his hands together. “And to make matters worse, I’ve lost my gloves . . . again.”
Austin chuckled. “Maybe that was why you received so many pairs for Christmas.” He couldn’t help but think back to that morning and the family’s exchange of gifts. There had been three for Austin. From the Barnett family he’d received a hand-knit scarf and a new shirt—both made by Hannah Barnett. The third present was a leather-bound copy of The Time Machine by H. G. Wells from Jake and Marty. He cherished all three.
“Seems I set the gloves down and they walk off. Or maybe it’s me who walks off,” Robert said, discarding his coat. He hung it on an empty peg by the door and made his way to the table. “Jake tells me I don’t know anything about the cold since I live in Texas, but I’m pert near frozen to death.”
Remembering a time in Virginia when snow had blanketed their town, Austin gave a chuckle. “It is a whole different situation, and I find I prefer Texas.”
Robert ambled over to the stove to warm his hands. “Ma said it was important so I came over straightaway. What seems to be the problem? Have you learned something new?”
“I have. Take a seat and I’ll show you. You want cream or sugar for your coffee?”
“No. Just black is fine.”
Austin produced the letter and placed it in front of Robert. He gave the man time to read while he took his seat at the table and sampled the coffee. He smiled in satisfaction at the taste.
“Do you think this might be where the counterfeit bills are hidden?” Robert asked, looking hopeful.
“That’s my thought. You’ll note that the box is heavy, so I’m hoping that means the plates are in there, as well. I’ve contacted my superiors to see how they want to handle this. Most likely they’ll have me travel to Colorado Springs to retrieve it.”
“Then maybe all of this will be over with,” Robert said, shaking his head. “Jake can tell Mr. Morgan and be done with it.”
“Has he showed up again?”
“Yeah. We don’t know where he was for most of the fall, but Morgan reappeared in mid-December and has been showing up from time to time, never planned or invited, but always persistent.”
“Is he still threatenin’ Jake with the authorities?” Robert asked.
“Not directly. When Jake suggested that perhaps Morgan himself was behind the counterfeiting and maybe he should take his suspicions to the authorities, Morgan changed his tune. He told Jake that he was just overstressed about someone forging certificates using numbers associated with his bank. Said he was worried about the effect it might have on the economy.
“Jake said Mr. Morgan was somewhat apologetic, like he expected Jake to understand it was his fear talking and not his reasoning. However, in the next breath, he muttered something to the effect that no one would believe he’d just handed Jake all that wealth and privilege. And, of course, there’s really no one who can substantiate that Morgan did, in fact, give those things to Jake.”
Robert considered this for a moment and took a long drink of the coffee. “It would seem Jake’s comment threatened Morgan enough that he decided to move slower. Even so, I can’t help but wonder if Morgan has a part in all of this. I have a hard time believin’ he’s just worried about the finances of the country.”
“It’s hard to say,” Austin admitted, “but I tend to agree with you. I’ve gone over all the details given me by Alice, Jake, and Marty. I’m beginning to see a definite pattern. The one thing they all have in common is Mr. Paul Morgan. With that in mind, I’ve sent word to my associates in Washington to have him further investigated. I’m certain by now they’ve arranged for someone to look closer at his dealings. The man certainly lives above his means and did so even during the hardest times in ’93 and ’94.”
“Well, he is related to J. P. Morgan. It is possible he’s been subsidized by this distant cousin.”
“I don’t know. I guess that’s just one more thing to figure out.” Austin picked up the coffeepot and offered Robert a refill. He gladly took it.
For several minutes the two men drank in silence. The wind picked up outside and made a moaning sound in the cabin. To Austin it sounded sorrowful.
“What’s your plan, Austin?” Robert finally asked. “Is there anything I can do to help get this resolved?”
“Well, as I mentioned, I’ve sent a wire to my former boss. I figure he’ll give me the go ahead to retrieve the box and open it. If it holds the certificates and plates, then that’s good news. If not, we’re back where we started.”
Robert nodded. “I can help you with rail fare.”
“Thanks, but when I agreed to take this on, the agency set up an account from which I can draw. I won’t need financial help.”
“So what kind of help do you need?”
Austin thought for a moment and without really meaning to he replied, “Spiritual.”
Robert looked surprised, even confused. “In what way?”
Leaning back in his chair Austin shared something of the past. It seemed to get a little easier each time he told it. Robert listened patiently, making no comment while Austin related his story.
“I faced a lot of loss.” Austin paused, uncertain he should continue. Robert was a good friend and appeared to be in no hurry to leave. Austin drew a deep breath and added, “It left me feeling that God no longer cared for me, that I wasn’t of importance to Him.”
Robert gave a hint of a nod. “Because you’d lost your family.” It was more statement than question.
“Yes, mostly. In the aftermath I felt so alone—even spiritually. The church folk I knew didn’t bother to check up on me. I had moved back to the city after Grace died. I couldn’t bear remaining in that house.” He blew out a heavy breath and fell back against his chair. “Even though I rented an apartment in the town’s central area near my old church, no one came to call. It was as if I no longer existed.”
“Perhaps they didn’t realize you’d returned.”
“Oh, they knew. I still owed the pastor for Grace’s services, and when I went to pay him, I mentioned having moved and gave him the address. He didn’t call on me or check to see why I wasn’t attending services. Of course, it is a rather large church.”
“Still, you would have thought someone would have come to see you.”
“I think my parents scared them off. They probably told everyone that I was to blame for Houston’s death, as well as Grace’s and my baby’s.” He shook his head. “If only they knew how I still carry that burden of responsibility. I loved my brother. I loved my wife and son. For my parents to suggest or think otherwise broke me in a way I wasn’t sure I could recover from.”
“I can see now what you meant by spiritual help.” Robert rubbed his chin. “I’m no preacher, but I do know that God doesn’t strip away His love when we make mistakes. You never meant to cause your brother or wife harm, so there was no sin on your part. The responsibility and blame you heap on yourself really aren’t yours. You’ve taken on a burden that never belonged to you.”
Austin stiffened. “It was my bullet.”
“What was the intention of your heart?”
“I was going to wound the counterfeiter.”
Robert raised a brow. “You mean to tell me you weren’t plannin’ to kill him?”
“No,” Austin said, shaking his head. “We needed the counterfeiters alive so we might learn if there were others involved on a higher level. It turned out there were.”
“So the intention of your heart was to capture this criminal and not to kill him.”
>
Austin shrugged. “To tell you the truth, when I saw him aim his rifle, I feared for Houston and myself. I drew up my pistol, and like I said, the man moved to fire and I beat him to it. Unfortunately, Houston thought I’d be killed and jumped in front of me.”
“Seems to me it was your brother’s fault he got himself killed.”
“That’s a hard thing to hear. I don’t look at it that way.” Austin felt a sense of anger. “Houston was a good agent. He knew his job and did it well. We had always been a good team up until then.”
“You were still a good team. In fact, I’d say his action proved that. He must have loved you dearly to sacrifice his own life for yours.”
“He did.” Austin’s words were barely audible.
“And what about Grace? Was it your intention to kill her—to kill your son?”
Austin was indignant. “Of course not! But I took her from the city, fearing someone might try to hurt her because of my work. I thought I was doing a good thing, but the isolation proved to take her life.”
“And you know for certain that had you been in the city, she would have lived?”
He thought for a moment. “No, but at least there would have been help available for her. Don’t you understand? She was alone. I’d planned for someone to be there, but the woman wasn’t able to come. So when Grace went into labor, no one was there to help her.”
“Austin, women die in childbirth all the time. I feared I’d lose Alice, but she told me the sacrifice was worth anything to have a child.”
For a moment Austin remembered Grace saying something similar. He didn’t have a chance to think on it for long, because Robert continued.
“And with your folks . . . well, I think their deaths had little to do with you. No doubt they were grieved over the loss of your brother, but their own bitterness and the need to blame someone ate at them. We can’t live under the pressure of hate and anger for long before it consumes us. It picks away little pieces of the heart day by day until there’s nothing left—and a man can’t live without a heart.”
“My father died from a heart attack, and I believe Mother died in her grief—not anger at me.”
“Which is my point,” Robert said, getting to his feet. “This really isn’t about you or what part you played. My guess is that your folks regretted what they’d said to you, but they didn’t know how to make it right, so they just left it undone. They probably thought they had plenty of time to mend fences. But we never know how much time we have on earth, so it’s best to treat each day as though it’s our last.”
Austin wanted to believe him. “And where was God in all of this?”
Robert never lost his smile. “God was there with your brother and you when a man threatened to kill you, and He took your brother’s life instead of yours. He was there with Grace and your son when neither were strong enough to go on living. He was there with you when you found them dead. He was even there with your parents while they grieved and blamed you, and there, too, as they died in their sorrows and bitterness. He never left you, Austin. We are the ones who do the walkin’ away.”
Taking his coat from the peg, Robert donned it and opened the door. “Just think about it, Austin. Go look in the Bible and see if I’m not speakin’ truth. That’s the only place to go for confirmation. God will show you.”
Austin followed him to the door and reached into his own coat pocket. “Here, take these. I have another pair.” He handed Robert his leather gloves. “Thank you.”
Robert grinned. “I’m probably going to lose these, you know.”
“That’s all right.”
Austin stared at the door long after Robert had exited. He reasoned through all that Robert had said and did his best to find cause to deny its truth. He couldn’t. He shifted his gaze to the ceiling.
“Are you really here with me?”
Jessica kneaded her dough just as Mrs. Barnett had instructed. Mother had sent her over to Hannah Barnett for lessons on making bread and cinnamon rolls. She assured Jessica that Hannah made the best in the county—possibly the state.
“That’s looking good,” Mrs. Barnett told her. “Now we’re going to roll out the dough. Once we have it stretched out, we’ll slather butter on it and sprinkle it with cinnamon and sugar. Will likes me to be generous with the sugar.” She smiled at Jessica. “After that, we roll it up, stretch it out a little to make it longer, and then we cut it in inch-wide slices all the way down the roll. We put them out on a pan and give ’em room, because they’re gonna double their size when we leave them to rise.”
Jessica fervently hoped she’d remember everything, because Hannah had mentioned she’d be heading to Marty’s and be gone for maybe an hour. Alice would be there to help if she got stuck, but Hannah assured her that she’d be back in time to help Jessica get them into the oven.
Alice popped into the kitchen, as if the thought of her name had drawn her there. “The babies are asleep, so now I can get some of that ironing done.”
Hannah Barnett looked at her daughter-in-law with such an expression of love, it stirred something deep in Jessica’s heart. “I told Jess that she could come to you if she gets perplexed in finishing up here.”
Alice gave her mother-in-law a nod. “I’d be happy to help. I’ll be in the back room. Holler if you need me.”
Jessica couldn’t help but sigh in relief. She was glad they had become good friends. Alice was the only woman her own age who spent any time with Jessica, and clearly she wouldn’t have had to. No one could have blamed her after the way Jessica had treated her in the past, but Alice was full of forgiveness.
I want to be like that.
The two women left Jessica to her work, and by the time she had placed the last roll on the pan to rise, she heard a loud knock on the front door.
“I’ll tend to it,” Alice called out.
Jessica took up some large flour sack towels, covered each of the trays, and put them aside to give the rolls time to rise. Grabbing more wood, she stoked the fire in the stove so the heated air would help the dough rise faster.
Since she’d heard nothing more from Alice, Jessica presumed that the caller was for her and went about cleaning up the kitchen. However, when she heard Alice cry out as if in pain, Jessica hurried down the hall as quietly as possible.
“I don’t know where those certificates are. Let go of me.”
The sound of her friend’s fear caused Jessica to freeze in place.
“I know that you’re a busy . . . mother,” a man declared, letting the word fade. The unspoken threat was there all the same.
“I can’t help you,” Alice insisted.
Jessica wondered what she should do. There was a shotgun by the back door. Perhaps she should retrieve it. She didn’t recognize the voice of the man, but he wasn’t a friend.
“I know Mrs. Barnett has gone. We saw her leave in the buggy.”
“We?” Alice asked, her voice little more than a squeeze.
This put Jessica into action. There was more than one man and that could mean trouble. More trouble than two young women could handle alone. The shotgun would make a good companion.
Jessica quickly retrieved the weapon, checked to make sure it was loaded, then made her way back as the stranger announced, “I think you know my friend.” Alice gasped and Jessica stepped around the corner, shotgun leveled.
“I think you remember Mr. Smith.”
Alice promptly fainted.
Chapter 20
Austin got home late at night after traveling that day to Dallas and back. He’d made the long ride to Dallas early that morning to meet with a representative of his old boss, Ellery Turner. The man took detailed notes of everything Austin had done and learned. Then he gave Austin a letter from Mr. Turner. Austin perused it quickly, happy to see that it contained official approval for him to go to Colorado Springs. Once there, he would meet with two other agents Turner would send. They were men he would know, so there would be no question as to their identity. Th
e trio was then to retrieve the lockbox from the bank and return to the hotel. There were further instructions, but Austin decided to give them a more thorough reading at home.
Happy to have his orders, Austin had grabbed a very late lunch before seeing Judge Weimer in order to brief the man on what was happening. However, that had been hours ago, and now he didn’t know whether he was more hungry or tired or cold.
The little cabin sat by itself under the starry sky. Nevertheless, the sight welcomed Austin and made him feel better. The wind had picked up in the last hours, chilling him to the bone. All he could think of was being warm, but eating and sleeping continued to run a close second and third. First he’d have to care for the horse’s needs, so getting thawed out would have to wait.
Glancing overhead at the stars, Austin thought of Jessica and how much he’d enjoy looking up at the night sky with her by his side. The horse whinnied, as if agreeing with his thoughts.
“You like her, too? Well, that just shows you have good taste,” Austin said in the stillness. He smiled and continued thinking about the beautiful woman. He also thought for a moment of Grace and knew she’d want him to be happy. She wouldn’t have liked the man he’d become since her death—lonely and haunted by the past. She would want him to marry Jessica.
“I’ve done my best, Grace, but I intend to do more.”
He rode around to the small pen Mr. Barnett had made for the horse. There was a loafing shed with a suitable attachment where Austin could store his tack, and across the pen a trough of water sat by the main pump. It proved to be a good setup.
Once he’d finished with the horse, Austin made his way back around to the front of the house. It was only when he got to the door that he realized a note had been tacked to it. He pulled the paper off and took it inside with him.
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