Simon located Teddy—the chute monkey and the man who kept the horses for the camp—and beckoned him closer. In a few breaths, the man dipped his ear low as if to listen through the gentle rumble of noise surrounding them. Simon pointed to the large bay horses in the stalls nearest them. “Do these horses belong to you or the Mill?”
“The Mill,” Teddy answered, and stood tall.
“Blast!” Simon cussed. He’d quit before he could borrow a horse to get the hides, and the nearest livery was ten miles away in Missoula. Most of the men he’d talked to earlier were eager to offload their pelts, and he’d arranged for a meeting this afternoon an hour up the mountain.
“But I got a few geldings down at the end that are mine,” Teddy said. “Victoria lets me keep them here during the summer, and old Bartlet feeds them for me. For a price, of course.”
Simon perked up and snapped his gaze to the man’s face. “Could I rent both of them from you? One saddled and one with a pack if you got it?”
“I don’t know.” Teddy scratched his face. “They got every kinda riggin’ you could need here, but I’s plannin’ to get back down to Missoula tonight and see my ma.”
Simon pulled a twenty dollar bill from the stack of money he’d gotten from Victoria. Since he’d gone straight to the doctor the following year, he hadn’t stopped to pick up wages owed him. He had stuffed two seasons’ worth of pay into his pockets. He’d rent the horses, and the rest he planned to use to buy the pelts to take to Carrie’s father.
With a now-wealthier Teddy’s eager cooperation, he wrapped the lead rope around the pommel of the saddled horse and mounted. An hour after that, he rode into a large clearing on the top of a hill and leapt to the soft meadow grass. He’d wait all night if he had to, but he planned to buy every pelt he could find in the mountains surrounding Missoula.
Before long, the first rough, bearded man came riding into the meadow, pulling a weighed-down horse behind him. Simon made short work of buying the pelts and slipping them over the pack saddle, only to turn as another mountain man appeared, and then another. With the fire close to home, the men needed any money they could get from what they had in case they needed to move on to another mountain range. Which was good for Simon’s business now, but not good if he wanted them for future supplies.
By the time the sun showed signs of fading into night, both of the horses drooped under the weight. He counted eighty-seven hides total. Although not what he needed for the business deal, he wasn’t altogether upset at the haul he’d gotten that day. He’d let the men know as they left to tell others where to find him in town. With any luck he’d have the first half of the bride price by evening tomorrow.
With no daylight to waste, he led the horses as fast as he could off the mountain. Night took over the sky and the crickets chirped in the tall bear grass outside the Mill by the time he secured the pelts in the train car he’d take to Missoula the next day. He unsaddled the horses and put them in their stalls with fresh hay and water. Tonight, he’d have to sleep in the mill’s bunkhouse, but come sunup he’d be on his way home.
God he wished he could be with Carrie tonight. Once he got Carrie’s father’s blessing confirmed, he’d beg her to wed within the week. There was no reason for them to be apart any longer.
Living in his grandmother’s house with a wife wasn’t ideal, but soon it would be his, and he’d much rather sacrifice his pride for a chance to have his wife by his side even sooner.
Simon stepped into the bunkhouse and hung his hat on the peg near a cot, then snatched up a pile of blankets from the linen shelf and made his bed.
“I heard you didn’t work here no more.” Thomas’s voice penetrated his concentration on squaring away his bunk. He turned to face the weasel of a man.
“Victoria said I could stay the night to square away any last-minute things. I’m out of here tomorrow morning.”
“Couldn’t take it no more?” Thomas leaned on a nearby bunk and crossed his legs. A smug grin plastered across his face. “Lost your woman, and now your job. Tsk, tsk, tsk.”
Simon bit his cheek and clenched his fist against the urge to plow the boy right in his gut. He adjusted the holster and gun from around his waist, not wanting to take it off just yet. “Carrie’s still mine, and I quit ’cause I got myself something else lined up.”
“Oh, you mean the deal you made with Carrie’s father?” Thomas pulled a smoke out of his pocket and lit it. “He gave me the same deal. One hundred pelts and a contract. Seems whoever gets him the goods first gets the girl and the business. I’d like to thank you for the job, though. Already got a business partner lined up and everything. Just need to get me some pelts. While you were up there playing hero, I was securing a buyer. Hardest part of the deal, if you ask me.”
Simon quickly moved his gaze away so the damned fool couldn’t see the rage shining in his eyes. A thousand replies ran through his mind. Everything from sticking a knife in the man’s heart to walking away, but he could do neither. “Carrie’s a strong woman, and no one’s property. If she don’t want to marry you, no deal her father makes will make her do so.”
“Oh, I think she will. I got me all kinds of ways to…how should I put it…persuade her to see my way.”
Simon’s scar twitched as his stomach grew hard and his heart began to thump. “If you lay a hand on her, I swear to God you won’t take another breath. I’ll kill you before the pain in Carrie’s body ebbs from your blow.”
“You won’t be there. You’ll be in some back-alley dump drowning in whiskey and misery while I teach your woman how to be a proper logger’s wife.” Thomas took the cigarette out of his mouth. “But don’t worry. If she’s full with your bastard child, I’ll let her keep it. The kid will be a good tool to keep her busy.”
Simon reached for the gun but stopped short of clearing leather. Thomas wasn’t worth losing his newfound life over. Simon tapped his middle finger against the cool steel, then dropped his hand by his side.
Thomas gave a greasy smile and leaned his back against the wall as Simon envisioned sending him through the hard wood. The weasel puffed out his smoke, and moved his hand to place the cigarette back in his mouth. Clenching his teeth tight, Simon stepped forward and caught Thomas’ fist midair. Which had the effect Simon had hoped for as Thomas struggled to free his hand and fear darkened his eyes. The weasel yanked hard as the cigarette caught Simon’s attention. Rolled tight in printed paper with a ribbon of smoke floating up from the burnt end.
“I thought you smoked cigars.”
“Cigars are for celebrating. Cheaper to roll my own tobacco.”
Simon struggled to keep his voice steady when he spoke. “What a unique way to roll it.”
“Yeah.” Thomas gave a half-smile. “I think this is Luke 1.” He drew out the words, and his upper lip twitched. “Wonder why most people haven’t discovered that Bible pages make good rolling paper, and are a helluva lot cheaper, too.”
Heat flushed through his body, and he slammed his forearm into Thomas’s neck, pinning him to the wall. Simon had never been a religious man, but that didn’t mean he didn’t respect the hell out of God and the Good Book. He wanted to shove his arm into the man’s throat until the life seeped from his being, but then Simon would be no better than the blasphemer before him.
What this man had done was beyond reprehensible. Beyond damaging a perfectly good read. What sort of man smokes the pages to the Bible?
Thomas started to turn red and struggle for breath. He flailed about, tapping on Simon’s forearm. Simon could ease up, give the man breath. Or he could rid the earth of the likes of Thomas.
Carrie’s image flashed in his mind, and he stepped back as Thomas dropped to the floor and clutched his neck. Thomas wheezed for air, and a strong sense of satisfaction pulsed through Simon’s fingertips.
Simon started to turn toward his bed as Thomas’s sudden movement caught h
is eye. In a few heartbeats the man reached underneath his cot, pulled out a pistol, and pointed it straight at Simon’s heart.
On reflex, Simon cleared leather and simultaneously cocked his hammer. “What did you do to Jake?”
“That lowlife?” Thomas spit the cigarette out and crushed the smoke beneath his foot. “You should thank me. I killed him for touching Carrie.”
Simon flexed his jaw. “Just now I wanted to kill you, but I held back. And I’m willing to bet I’ve got a faster trigger finger than you. I could kill you right now. But I won’t. What gives you the right to take a man’s life? Even if it was in service of Carrie.”
“Jake had it coming anyway. He’s wanted a few states over for crimes against women. We weren’t friends. We just worked together.”
“Then why hide the body and act like a concerned friend?”
Thomas gave him a look like he was daft. “I don’t want to go to jail for putting some rapist where he belongs.”
“You’re no better than him.”
“I may use questionable tactics to get ahead in life, but I’d never treat a woman the way he did on many occasions. Hell, I heard he even strangled a prostitute over in Nevada while he took her.” Thomas’s gun wavered slightly as though he was second-guessing his decision to take Simon on.
“What else have you done up there on the mountain? Did you start the fire?” Simon un-cocked his gun and placed it back in his holster. Hoping the weasel would do the same.
Thomas followed his lead and secured his weapon under his cot. The fool wasn’t brave when up against a better man. Thomas swiped at something on his forehead. “Nope. That was an act of God.”
“I thought with the way you desecrated His book, you didn’t believe in God.”
“I believe in him all right. I’ve just come to terms with the fact that most of us have little chance of making it past those pearly gates.”
“What else?” Simon already knew the lowlife had spied on him and Carrie across the lake, but what other crimes had the man committed up there under the guise of vigilante justice? “What about the man at the beginning of the season? The one who was hit with the log? Some of us don’t believe he was hit by a widowmaker.”
Thomas shrugged and shook his head. “Wasn’t me. Maybe you have another man up there tired of all the lowlife rats plaguing the timber operations.”
“You aren’t the judge, jury, and executioner.” He could let the man get away with what he’d done based on the character behind the man he’d murdered, but there was no way he’d let Thomas stay in Carrie’s life any further. “You’re going to back out of the marriage deal with Carrie’s father. Otherwise I’m going to take this to the law.”
“And tell him what? You think I killed someone on the mountain? You can’t prove anything. What you’ve got is hearsay at best.” Thomas dusted off his shoulder, although Simon failed to see what offended the man so much he needed to flick it off. His jacket was as clean as fresh linens. In fact, they looked brand-new. Probably purchased in order to impress Carrie’s father. Thomas’s eye twitched. “I backed down from our standoff just now ’cause you ain’t done nothing worth killing for. Mostly. But I ain’t giving up Carrie ’cause you say to. I’ll take my chances.”
“If you don’t back out, I’ll take my chances with the sheriff.” Simon straightened taller, hoping to at least scare the little weasel. “I don’t know why you’re so in need of a wife that you’ll force one into marriage, but I can guarantee she doesn’t love you.”
“Not that it’s any of your business, but my ma won’t be in this world much longer, and all she wanted was to see me hitched to a good woman. I need to marry in a hurry. I don’t have much chance to search. And it doesn’t hurt that her father offered me a partnership if I take his soiled daughter off his hands.” Thomas shrugged. “Carrie will learn to love me in time.”
“Then you don’t know Carrie.” Simon relaxed against his bunk. If he knew anything about the woman he loved, it was that she’d fight until her soft little hands were torn and bleeding before entering into a marriage she didn’t want to be in. Even if her father forced her, she’d never go willingly.
There was a small chance he’d have to steal her away and run, but that was a chance Simon was willing to take if it came down to it. He sat on his bunk and lounged as if no longer affected by the weasel’s words, and Thomas responded as he’d hoped—by taking a step back and frowning in confusion. Simon let a smug half-grin stretch across his face. “I suggest you look elsewhere. I’d wager there’s a mail-order bride you can order. In fact, I’m fairly certain I saw a flyer for an Irish wife back at the Missoula Mercantile.”
“I ain’t paying for no wife. Especially an Irish one.” Thomas shuffled to his bunk and sat. His words were strong, but his posture showed Simon had defeated him. Or at the least planted a seed of doubt in his half-cocked plan. “Not when I have one I can profit from.”
“If by profit you mean lose everything, then keep trying. Carrie will run before she’ll allow some half-wit to force her into marriage.”
“And you’ll be leading her horse, I suppose. A woman would never shuck out on her own without a father or husband to support her.”
“Goes to show how much you know the woman you aim to force into marriage,” Simon said. “If she needs me, I’ll be there while she runs, but she won’t. That woman is stronger than Beth and Aunt June combined. Just doesn’t show it much.”
He wasn’t going to sugarcoat anything for the fool. Carrie would run if she had to, and like Thomas suggested, Simon would be there to help her in whatever fashion she needed. Especially if she needed him to help her run for her freedom.
Chapter 23
Simon stuffed his belongings in his canvas bag and slung it over his shoulder. He squinted in the dense early morning dark to the bunk where Thomas had slept the night before, but the bed was empty. Better off. He didn’t want another confrontation with the man who aimed to take away the only thing in this world that gave Simon reason to breathe. Carrie.
With no one else in the bunkhouse and no need to stifle his noise, he yanked the door open and stepped out into the cool of the mountain air. The train would leave in less than twenty minutes for Missoula, and he needed to be onboard. If luck was on his side, he’d deliver the pelts to Carrie’s father as a good-faith gesture and hope it helped secure his future. The smell of burning coal mixed with freshly cut wood filled every inch of the air around him. A scent he loved dearly and would miss after today.
The release of the train brakes sounded through the darkness, and he jumped aboard the railcar where he’d stashed the pelts the night before just as the train chugged slowly down the tracks. He felt through the dark for the stack of hides but met only with the cold wood floor of the train. A sour taste in his mouth formed as a lump took residence in the back of his throat. He searched frantically around him until he’d felt almost a quarter of the railcar floor, with no luck. Where the hell had his pelts gone? His heart thumped fast, rivaling the escalating chug of the train wheels beneath him.
“They aren’t there,” a familiar voice said through the darkness as the train picked up speed.
“Who’s there?” Simon raised his head as he spoke, even though he knew the other passenger couldn’t see his movement. “Teddy?”
“Yeah,” Teddy responded. “You’re looking for those pelts, right? I saw you bring them in last night.”
“I am looking for them.” Simon plopped down in a corner of the dark railcar across from where his friend’s voice originated. “What do you know about their whereabouts?”
“Can’t say for certain, but this morning I was gearing up my pack line and Thomas appeared. Offered me one hundred bucks if I could take his spot on the train and let him take my horses down.”
“And you didn’t find it odd?”
Simon heard more than saw Teddy’s shrug th
rough the slowly lightening morning dark. “You offered me money to borrow them last night. I figured I was making out, but when I got in I noticed your pelts were gone.”
“And you figure Thomas took them?” Even if Teddy didn’t, Simon did. The dag-blamed weasel had gotten a jump on him and stolen his bride price. The only thing left for him to secure James Kerr’s blessing to wed Carrie.
“Don’t know what’s going on, but I got a hunch I want you to take the lead in whatever battle you’re fighting.”
“In short,” Simon started, and slouched to try and staunch the ache inside his gut, “we’re fighting for Miz Carrie, and if I don’t get those pelts back, then she’s going to have to walk away from her family and struggle like hell for her freedom or be married to a curly wolf like Thomas.”
“And if she marries you?”
“I love her,” Simon confessed. He’d told no one but Carrie his true feelings, but there was no reason to hide them any longer. Especially now. “And if I’m reading her signs right, she loves me too. Only problem is her father wants to turn her marriage into a business deal.”
“What is it with you city folk and selling your kids off for business?”
Simon shook his head in answer. If his parents had lived to see he and Beth grown, he had to believe they wouldn’t have been so callous. “If I fail, all hell’s going to break loose for the woman I love. She’ll fight to be free and lose her whole family in the process.” Simon shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t want her to lose her family, but I can’t live without her either.”
“My sister went against my parents,” Teddy began. “Fell in love with a card player from Bozeman. When my ma told her to let him be or pack her bags, she chose the card player.”
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