“Are you sure he didn’t just happen to be in the same place?” Angus asked.
“I can’t believe that it is a coincidence, Angus. I can’t afford to think that way. He is a dangerous man, a man that would kill me given the opportunity and no witnesses,” she said.
“Kill us, you mean,” he said.
“Perhaps. I don’t know. I am the only threat to the man who took my inheritance, but if you were there, if you got in the way…” Margaret said, looking at her feet.
Angus jumped up from the table and stormed out the back door into the darkness again. Margaret stopped trying to hold back the tears she had felt welling up inside since yesterday and sobbed into her hands until there were no more left to fall.
“You are my wife, Margaret,” Angus said as he reappeared from outside a few minutes later. “Nothing will happen to you.”
Margaret dried her face and began clearing away the remnants of supper. Angus made no attempt to comfort her or speak to her further, instead adjourning to a chair in the living room with his bible. He sat reading with Dog at his feet until bedtime, not even joining her when she went. She let him be. He needed time to absorb what she had told me was her reckoning. It had been a lot to accept, she knew.
Chapter Seven
Hours later, she awoke in the darkness to find Angus by her side. Though he was in the bed, he seemed to have tried to lay as far from her as possible. She felt awful having this between them now. At the same time, it was a relief not to keep such a huge secret from him. If nothing else, he now knew that he needed to protect himself, no matter what became of her. She drifted back off into a restless sleep until nearly dawn.
“Margaret?” Angus whispered, waking her from her slumber. She tried to respond, but he clamped his hand over her mouth to hush her. “There is someone in the house. Get under the bed.”
Margaret didn’t question him, instead just doing as he asked. She lay there under the springs, praying with all her might. She could hear boards creaking as someone made their way up the stairs. Dog was growling from somewhere near the closed bedroom door. It felt like her heart might beat out of her chest as she waited for what would happen next. She was startled as she heard Angus call out to whomever was trespassing.
“You need to stop and leave this house right now,” Angus told them. “Get as far away from here as possible and tell whoever sent you that you did what you came to do so we can all just live in peace.”
There was silence for a moment as the person, who she assumed was the man with the scar, paused and considered Angus’s word – at least, that is what she was guessing. Then there was a voice, cold, dark. It was the voice of evil if she had ever heard such a thing. His words chilled her to the bone.
“I can’t do that,” was all he said.
Then, the footsteps were rapid, pounding up the stairs and throwing open the bedroom door. Margaret felt the bedsprings creak and heard a deafening roar as guns were fired. There was silence again, as she lay there, afraid to move or breath. Then a lantern was ignited, flooding the room with light. Margaret looked to her side and saw the face of the man looking at her from the floor next to the bed. Except, his eyes were vacant and a pool of blood began to stain the floor beneath him. She screamed, scampering out from under the bed and onto her feet beside the bed.
“Angus? Angus? Are you okay?” she called out as she got her bearings.
“I’m fine. He clipped me, but it is just a scratch,” he said, pulling aside the ripped material of his night shirt, now soaked with blood from the bullet that had grazed his arm.
“I will get a clean cloth,” she said.
“No. I have to go get the sheriff. I want you to go downstairs and wait. Open the door for no one,” he told her, not waiting for an answer.
Margaret followed him out of the bedroom and down the stairs. She satin the high back chair facing the door, Dog on her lap. It seemed like it took forever for Angus to return with the local sheriff in tow. The two men went upstairs while she remained in her chair. She was unsure what they were discussing, but they were gone quite a while. When a knock sounded at the door, Margaret jumped almost involuntarily.
“Margaret, you can answer that. It’ll be the mortician to collect the body,” Angus yelled down the stairs. She stood and walked slowly to the door, opening it to find an older man and two younger ones waiting with a wooden slab between them. A white sheet was folded and draped across the old man’s shoulder.
“Hello, ma’am. Tobias Black. I’ve been asked to collect the deceased,” he told her.
“Of course,” she replied. “He is upstairs.”
The men entered and headed up the stairs Margaret had pointed toward as she spoke. They were there for a while and then began making their way back downstairs with him on the wooden board with the white sheet draped over him. Margaret noted the dark red spot staining it where he continued to bleed. There would still be quite a mess to clean up in the bedroom. She chastised herself for such a dark thought. Even though he was a bad man, he was a human being and death was never to be taken lightly. She went to the kitchen to start some breakfast. The men were coming downstairs just as she finished and so, she stepped into the front room to offer the Sheriff some food.
“Thank you, ma’am. I don’t mind if I do. I need to ask you a few questions before I leave anyway,” he told her.
Margaret glanced at Angus. He nodded and sat down at the table, where she had already laid out the food and clean plates. She gathered herself as she poured milk for everyone and joined them at the table.
“I don’t believe we have met before. Angus tells me you are from London originally. I am Sheriff Harlan Crumpton. Your name is Margaret McCord, yes?” he asked.
“Yes, that is my name,” she replied.
“Your maiden name was Thorn?” he asked.
“Yes,” Margaret replied.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“What do you mean, am I sure?” she bristled.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. I don’t mean to seem rude. It’s just that Angus here tells me you were hiding from some trouble in London. I thought you might have given a different name to cover your whereabouts,” he said.
“No, I didn’t. I gave a different name to get on the steamer that brought me here, but I used my real name when I came through the harbor. I didn’t think they would follow me here,” she admitted.
“I see. I’m going to be honest here. I don’t know that there is much I can do about your situation. I can telegraph London and advise them of the situation, but it is really up to them whether they do anything, and if the man who wants you dead is as powerful as it seems, it might only stir up more trouble for you,” he told her.
“I understand,” she replied.
“So, what I am going to do is just write this off as a robbery gone bad. Angus shot the man protecting his home and that will be the end of it,” he told her.
“Then more could still come for me,” Margaret said, losing what little appetite she had prior to this discussion.
“Yes, ma’am. I’m afraid that is correct, but I will be on the lookout for strangers and if they do, we will deal with them,” he told her.
“Thank you, Sheriff,” she replied, noting that Angus had been silent during the entire conversation, picking at his food and looking downward. “If you don’t mind, I need to be excused.”
“Of course, ma’am,” he replied.
Margaret left them to eat their breakfast while she went upstairs to finish getting dressed. She had just grabbed her dress from yesterday off the valet on her way out of the room and slipped into it downstairs when Angus had sent her out. She must look a fright. Getting herself presentable would give her something else to focus on for a bit and allow them time to clear out from the kitchen. The last thing she wanted to do was discuss any of this further. She had enough on her mind.
Stepping into the bedroom, she was reminded that she had a mess on her hands there. She walked around the puddle
of blood on the floor and began laying out her clothes for the day, then sat at the small dressing table Angus had made for her and began brushing out her hair before pulling it back up into a loose bun. She looked at herself in the mirror and wasn’t sure she recognized the woman looking back. She appeared older than her twenty-four years and felt even older than that. It seemed like a lifetime ago that she had lived a life of luxury and privilege.
Once she heard the front door close, a sign that their visitor had left, she made her way back downstairs to retrieve a pan and some of the hot water left on the stove. She could see Angus already out in the field working. No doubt he needed to be far away from her this morning. Pulling a stack of the old clothes they kept around for cleaning floors and woodwork, she went back upstairs to begin cleaning up the blood that had spilled on their bedroom floor.
“How can there be so much?” she said to no one in particular.
Dog lay beneath the bed, watching her as she worked. He lifted his head as if to question but lay back down once she said nothing further. It took her the better part of two hours just to clean the blood up and another to scrub it from the cracks in the flooring the best she could. The slight stain it left behind would fade in time, but it was going to be a huge reminder for quite a while. She finished up and took the pan of tainted water out back and emptied it, flushing out the remainder with water from the well and tossing the clothes onto a brush pile to dry. They could burn with the debris later when Angus decided to clear it out.
Back in the house, she contemplated the events that had transpired and began getting ready to make lunch. Time had flown by as she had worked on the stains on the bedroom floor and the sun was already climbing high in the sky. Food was becoming scarce in the house so she had to make do with what they had these days. The damage from the storm last summer had taken out a lot of crops with no time to replant before winter. She and Angus had done well with what they had managed to get in and can for the winter months and the corn they had salvaged had gone pretty quickly at the market or in barter for other items, but they were still having to ration much of what they had. Today’s lunch would consist of fresh cornbread and the butter she had churned.
When Angus didn’t come in from the field, she took him a healthy portion out to the field, along with a glass of buttermilk. He stood up, eating it in several large bites before downing the buttermilk and handing the jar back to her. Wordlessly, he went back to his work, turning his back on her as he did so. She knew he was upset, but was at a loss as to what exactly he was thinking. She felt crushed, but there was little she could do or so.
“Angus, are we ever going to talk again?” she asked him after a wordless day.
“I just need some time to sort out my head and my heart,” he told her.
“What does that mean?” she asked.
“Do you not realize what you’ve done, Margaret? You lied to me from the beginning,” he said.
“I know. I’m sorry, Angus. I didn’t mean for things to be this way,” she told him.
“Maybe you didn’t, but things are like this. If I had known, perhaps we could have dealt with it somehow, but you didn’t say a word until it was too late. Now, a man is dead. I killed a man,” he said, his voice cracking.
“I’m sorry you had to do that, Angus. You did nothing wrong. He was a bad man,” she said.
“How do I know that? All I know is what you have told me, and for all I know, that might be a lie, too,” he said.
“You think I am the bad person? That perhaps that man was an innocent sent her to retrieve me?” Margaret shrieked, not having considered that he might think that of her before now.
“How am I to know? You feel like a stranger to me,” he said.
“He had a gun, Angus! He was going to kill me! He would have killed both of us!” she yelled at him.
“Well, he won’t be killing anyone now, will he? How long until another comes? How long until more than one come?” Angus said.
“I can’t believe you are blaming me for something I have no control over,” she said, seething inside.
“I can’t believe that the woman I loved so much lied to me without a second thought.”
“I’m sorry, Angus. I’m sorry. I was scared. I don’t know how many ways I can say it.” She calmed a bit.
“I’m sorry, too,” he said, turning his back on her without another word and walking further into the field away from her.
Margaret stared after him as tears began to roll down her face. Did he not understand that she was the one that had been wronged by someone she trusted? She was only trying to survive. Angus had given her a home and she had fallen in love with him. He was her life now, or he was. Everything was shattered, destroyed. Would this nightmare ever end?
She would remain in danger as long as the man who wanted her dead was out there and if she was in danger, so was Angus. What needed to be done was clear. Margaret lay awake all night, trying not to toss and turn with Angus in the bed beside her. She looked at his dimly lit form in the bed, only slightly illuminated by the full moon outside their window. He was beautiful to her, so hardy and strong, so handsome. There was nothing she wouldn’t do to make sure he was safe, even if that meant leaving him behind.
Chapter Eight
The following morning, as he worked out in the fields, she packed a few things, all she would be able to carry on horseback. She waited until he was on the back half of the property and then made a hasty exit, heading west. The people who would look for her would expect her to come back east where she knew people, so her only option was to go west toward San Francisco or perhaps drift south toward Galveston. Either place would give her quick access to leave America if things did get too hot.
She didn’t feel very ladylike in a pair of riding pants boots, hat and one of Angus’s old shirts, but it would make her look more masculine from a distance, which would make her travels safer than being noted as a woman traveling alone. She rode hard until dark began to fall around her and then began looking for a place to camp for the night. With only a blanket to keep her warm, she would need to find the warmest place possible as the night were still pretty chilly. Ducking into a heavily wooded area, she tied the horse to a tree and sat down on a nearby log to eat some of the cornbread she had packed, slathering it with a bit of jam.
After a while, she curled up behind the log, letting it shield her from the night breeze. She rolled up in the blanket to sleep. It took a while to drift off with the sounds of the forest all around her. She could hear coyotes howling in the distance. The fear of them remained after she had seen what they had done to Dog and tried to do to Angus. Memories of her lost home overcame her fear of what lay out in the wild as tears fell and she cried herself to sleep out in the darkness of the woods.
She awoke in the early morning hours, eating a few bites of the jerky she had packed and taking a few swigs of water from her canteen before heading out again. The days and nights all ran together as she traveled swiftly. Her food supply was running out and she felt exhausted. She wasn’t even sure how long she had been traveling or where she was headed, having decided she would just follow the trails westward until she arrived someplace that felt like she could be there for a while, perhaps forever.
“Where ya headed, ma’am?” a sprightly old man she met at a vegetable stand along the road asked.
“I’m not sure,” she replied, looking at the items he had for sale. She had no money, but was hoping he would be up for a trade.
“Not good country to be traveling in alone, if you don’t mind my saying so,” he advised.
“Thanks. I’ve no choice and no money. Would you be willing to trade a few items for a bit of jewelry? It’s gold. I brought it all the way from England with me,” she told him.
A short time later, she left with a pack full of fruit and vegetables that she could eat on the trail and a full canteen of water from a nearby spring he pointed her toward. He cautioned her to steer clear of the paths used by the influx
of gold miners into the California hills and she thanked him before heading back out, careful to steer more southward toward Texas. Galveston was the place to be, she had decided.
Day after day passed as she made her way into the great state of Texas, with still quite a distance to go to get to the southern coast. The trip had been lonely and her spirits were low, but at least she had made it with encountering very few other travelers and without incident. She had feared the worst with traveling alone, but had been fortunate. Even the coyotes had never come too close and she was even more thankful for that.
When she finally made it into Dallas, Texas, she was once again running low on food and completely out of water. She traded the last of the jewelry that had been gifts from her father for a room for the night and enough food for the rest of the trip. The city was bustling with a lot more people than she had seen in most of the cities here in America. There were all too many single farmers and ranchers eager to vie for her affections and she found herself rejecting men all throughout town, even dressed in manly clothing. It didn’t seem to matter to them that she was decidedly unwomanly and disheveled.
“You sure are a pretty little thing,” a burly man leaning against a building told her. He reached out to touch the long braid that had fallen out from under her hat and hung down her shoulder. Margaret yanked away from him and scowled. “What’s the matter? You too good for the likes of me?”
Margaret jerked away from him, only to find herself in a worse situation. A pair of drunken men stumbled out of a nearby bar just as she was passing it. They smiled at her, one of them quite toothless and disgusting. He reached and grabbed for her hand and she jerked away.
“Oh, she’s spunky. I like that,” the man cackled.
“Nothing like a feisty woman to liven things up, huh, Jacob?” one of the other men retorted.
“Sure ain’t,” the first man replied taking a few steps toward her. She began edging away from him, careful not to turn her back on either of them. Suddenly hands were on her arms from behind her.
Dragon of the Prairie (Exiled Dragons Book 13) Page 6