Painted by the Sun

by Elizabeth Grayson

  Ty had gone to live with Shea after the robbery. At first he had resisted leaving the cabin, but Shea simply packed up his scant belongings and Ty had followed her to the studio.

  In the end, he seemed to like sleeping somewhere warm and safe, eating regular meals, and knowing someone was looking after him. Cam himself had arranged for Ty to visit his father at the jail whenever he liked, and in these last days, Morran seemed to have become more of a parent to the boy than he'd been in a very long while.

  Cam stepped down from the bench as Shea hurried Ty down the aisle. "I thank you for letting us in early," she told him, looking harried. "The mob in the street is quite unruly."

  "I can't imagine what either of you is doing here," Cam admonished, scowling at her, scowling at Ty. "Murder trials are no place for women and children!"

  "Well, I ain't leaving," Ty announced. "You can't make me."

  Shea raised her eyebrows in dismay. "I did my best to dissuade him," she said, "but he wants to be here."

  "It's not like I don't know what he done," the boy argued, his chin jutting mulishly.

  "And if Ty is staying, so am I," Shea averred.

  Cam sure as hell didn't want the two of them here. No boy should be exposed to the kind of testimony Ty would hear about his father. No child should be in the room when a jury found his father guilty of murder, or hear the death sentence pronounced on him.

  Cam didn't want them here for his own sake, either. He couldn't allow himself to be compromised in his handling of this case. He didn't want to know that Ty was here. He didn't want Shea watching, either.

  She saw too much, understood too much. He didn't want her to guess that his belly went hot at the thought of facing the Seaver gang, didn't want her to see how afraid he was that this trial would expose his secrets. He didn't want to see her disillusionment if his life unraveled before her eyes.

  He could bar them from the courtroom if he chose, but neither was likely to forgive him that.

  "All right, damn it," he finally conceded. "Take seats down in front where I can keep an eye on you. And don't expect that this is going to be easy for anyone."

  Shea lay her palms on Ty's narrow shoulders and spoke with conviction. "We'll be just fine."

  Cam doubted that, but he ushered them into seats behind the defense table and nodded for the bailiff to open the doors.

  Once everyone was seated or had found a place to stand, the lawyers took their chairs. The prisoners arrived and jury selection went off without a hitch. Every man in town wanted to serve, to hear the sensational testimony and bask in the notoriety of being on the jury that voted to hang the Seaver gang.

  Once all the jurors had taken their places, Cam began to instruct the panel. "In considering this case, you will be dealing with acts of murder committed in the course of a robbery. The defendants will be judged guilty or innocent of either or both charges.

  "I want you to notice that there is one lawyer for each of the defendants. Mr. Edwards will be defending Mr. Seaver."

  Edwards stood, and the men in the gallery craned their necks to catch a glimpse of the stone-face outlaw seated beside him.

  "Mr. Wallace is representing Mr. Morran," Cam went on. "And Mr. Kingston is counsel to Mr. Faber."

  Sam Morran sat with his head bowed. Faber was pale and still bandaged from the wound he'd received in the course of the robbery.

  "The reason each man has a lawyer of his own," Cameron went on, "is that while the charges against these men are to be considered simultaneously, you will be deciding the guilt or innocence of each man separately. Is there any one of the jurors who would like me to explain that further?"

  The jurors shook their heads, and before he continued, Cam spared a glance for the rest of the courtroom. His gaze swept over the rows of avid faces. Newspapermen with their pads and pencils had come from as far away as Julesburg and Cheyenne. Cowmen had ridden in from their ranches. He recognized everyone from blacksmiths to bank presidents in the rows of chairs. Several members of the city council and three county commissioners were in attendance.

  Yet not one saloon owner or employee was in attendance. Barkeeps knew murder trials were thirsty work.

  As his gaze tracked back toward the jury box, Cam spotted a tall, lean man leaning negligently against the doorjamb. He had a long face, with a sharp jaw and stiffly waxed mustache. His expression was hidden in the shade of his hat, but hair the color of corn silk flowed in waves against his collar.

  It had been ten years and more since Cam had put that part of his life away, but he would have known his old enemy anywhere. It was Wes Seaver.

  Cam felt the blood leach out of his face; his head went light. He tried to point and shout the order to have Wes Seaver arrested, but he couldn't seem to suck in air enough to speak the words.

  Seaver made the most of his reaction. He smiled, nodded at Cameron, then turned to go.

  Cam sat helpless as Seaver stepped past the man beside him and disappeared down the hall.

  As he fought to regain his composure, Cam caught a glimpse of Shea. She had seen his reaction to Seaver in his face—and though he didn't think she'd turned soon enough to see the man himself, that wouldn't stop her from asking more questions than he could answer.

  He straightened and cleared his throat, doing his best to buy time enough to gather his wits.

  "I—I know there's been a great—a great deal of public—public outcry over the matter at hand," he managed to start again. "In the interest of fairness, I—I want you as members of the jury to do your best to put the sentiment of the community out of your mind as you consider the guilt or innocence of the men being tried, and make your judgment of these individuals accordingly."

  Relieved to have this initial duty out of the way, Cam's heartbeat slowed.

  "Mr. McGreggor the prosecuting attorney for the Colorado Territory will now make his opening statement," he concluded and sat back in his chair. What he vowed to do for the rest of today was keep his mind on the trial ahead of him.

  * * *

  From the moment she and Ty took the seats Cam had provided for them in the first row of the gallery, Shea found herself wishing she were anyplace but where she was. She didn't want to be in this close, crowded courtroom where Sam Morran was about to be tried for robbery and murder. She didn't want to watch Cam take his place on the bench and preside over the case, when his concern for the boy was eating him from the inside out. Heartache lay ahead for both of them, and Shea hated knowing she was helpless to save them from what was to come.

  Once the deputies arrived with the prisoners, the din of voices in the courtroom rose. Shea's gaze moved over each of the three men—men she'd photographed not all that long before. Jake Seaver's sandy hair was slicked back with pomade, and in spite of a limp and the manacles on his wrists, he managed to affect a demeanor of cocky disdain. Matt Faber, the outlaw who'd been wounded in the robbery, stared straight ahead, his face impassive.

  It was Sam Morran who seemed to reflect the gravity of the proceedings. He hunched like a man beaten down by life, a man who expected this trial to be the final blow. He raised his head long enough to seek out his boy, and for an instant his eyes warmed and a smile touched the corners of his mouth.

  Ty inched forward in his chair as if he meant to go to his father. Only when Shea laid a restraining hand on the boy's arm did Morran's gaze move past his son to her. He frowned for an instant as if he had expected her to prevent Ty from coming here, then he lowered his chin as if he knew no power on earth would have kept his son away.

  Once the prisoners had joined their lawyers at the defense table, and Cam and the others had taken their places, the bailiff bellowed: "This First District Court for the Territory of Colorado is now in session, Judge Cameron Gallimore presiding."

  Cameron clapped his gavel, looking powerful and judicial and so grave Shea's heart went out to him. He had his duty to perform today, and he'd live up to it, no matter what the cost.

  She eased Ty back in
his chair and settled herself more comfortably to watch what went on. Yet as the jurors were questioned and picked, she found her gaze drawn to Ty and his father again and again.

  Cam had arranged for the two of them to spend time together at the jail, and once the alcohol had boiled out of Morran's system, he had reverted to the man he must have been before Ty's mother died. He'd become a father who had time for his child, time for a few soft words and a smile, time for a game of checkers and a moment or two of foolery.

  As she waited for the jury selection to be completed, Shea saw the concern in Morran's dark eyes and the terrible longing in Ty's. They had found each other, now when it was very nearly too late for them.

  As she watched, Shea couldn't help wondering what Ty wanted from this man who was his father, what he'd yearned for in the years since Sam had sacrificed responsibility for his boy to his own grief. Had Ty wanted love, guidance, a real home? Did he yearn for someone to take care of him so he could be a child again?

  Shea trembled, knowing she meant to offer all that to Ty if he gave her the chance. She wanted to give him all the love, all the mothering she might have lavished on her own child if he didn't already belong to someone else.

  She'd come to understand since he'd been staying at the studio, that she needed a son just as badly as Ty needed a mother. She didn't know if such a proud, independent boy would be able to accept from her the things his father had never been able to provide. She wasn't sure if she had the courage to ask him to stay. What would she do if she offered him a home and he refused? How could she bear to lose a child she loved a second time?

  When Shea turned her attention from Ty and his father to the trial once more, she saw that the jurymen had taken their places, and Cam was instructing them about how the trial would be conducted. Halfway through the explanation, he paused and glanced around the courtroom. Shea could see contempt for the people who'd come to watch the trial in the line of his mouth and the way he narrowed his eyes. It was the same contempt she'd seen in him when he'd looked at her that day in Breckenridge.

  Then all at once, his attention snagged on something at the back of the courtroom. His eyes widened; his voice faltered. His face paled to gray.

  Shea craned around to see what had affected him so, but at first all she could see were the avid faces in the rows behind her and a line of men standing in rapt attention against the back wall of the courtroom. Then her attention shifted to a scuffling in the doorway.

  She caught the slope of a man's shoulder, the line of his back, and a glimpse of pale hair. She hadn't seen nearly enough of him to be sure, but the man put her powerfully in mind of Wes Seaver.

  But that had to be impossible. The sheriff and his posse had investigated every hill and hollow, every barn and home and outhouse between the mining camp and the Kansas border these last two weeks. Seaver and the rest of his gang had vanished like frost in the sunshine. They must be long gone from here, and not haunting the halls of Denver's courthouse.

  After a minute's hesitation, Cam seemed to overcome whatever it was that had upset him. When she turned her full attention to him again, he was continuing with his address to the jury as if he'd done no more than taken a breath.

  The trial went on all day, and for all of his usual exuberance Ty never moved. He paid attention when the prosecutor explained the details of the robbery and the roles each of the men had played in it. He sat and listened when each prisoner's attorney spoke, declaring his client's innocence.

  He seemed to watch from someplace deep inside himself as the witnesses were questioned and questioned again. Some were men who'd been in the bank during the holdup; others had been close enough to see the robbers' faces as they came out. A few were men who'd shot it out with the Seaver gang. Shea wondered what Ty thought, what this bright but illiterate boy, this child whose future would be decided by what was said and done here, made of the proceedings.

  It was late afternoon when Cam set a time to reconvene and banged his gavel to dismiss court for the day. The prosecution had rested its case, and the defense lawyers would begin presenting their witnesses in the morning.

  The moment the prisoners were removed, the crowd gushed out of the courtroom like rain down a gutter. Doubtless they were headed for the saloons that bloomed like summer daisies in the streets surrounding the courthouse. There, over innumerable glasses of whiskey, the men would discuss and ponder and argue over the trial in anticipation of its inevitable outcome.

  Shea wasn't sure if Cameron had plans to join them for a drink, but she went to the head of the aisle and waited while he gathered up his things, anyway.

  "Where's Ty?" he asked, buckling his satchel closed as he turned to her.

  "He wanted to go over to the jail to spend time with his father. I told him he could have supper there, and I'd come by for him later."

  Cam frowned, not quite meeting her eyes. "I can't tell you how many times today I looked over and saw him there, watching and listening. Probably understanding a whole lot more of this than is good for him." Cam sighed and shifted the satchel in his hand. "He knows what's going to happen, doesn't he?"

  "I think he knows," Shea answered slowly. "But I think he wants to believe there's hope."

  He shook his head. "Ty hasn't dared hope for anything since his mother died."

  Then, Shea thought, hope was one more thing she'd be able to give to Ty when this was over.

  They walked out of the courtroom together and pushed their way along the crowded corridors. The din of voices was all but deafening, and Shea was glad when they reached the relative quiet of the sunny street.

  As they stepped outside, she laid a hand against Cam's arm and looked up at him. "There's something I'd like to discuss with you," she began, "if you have time."

  Before he could reply, a boy of twelve or thirteen rushed up to them. "Judge Gallimore?" he asked breathlessly.

  "I'm Judge Gallimore."

  "A man said for me to give you this," the boy told him and thrust a folded paper into Cam's hand.

  "What man?" Cam asked, as he tried to catch hold of the lad's coat. The boy was a step too quick for him.

  "What was that about?" Shea asked, staring after the child.

  Cam shrugged and flicked open the sheet of foolscap with his thumb. Before her eyes, the strong, vital man beside her turned wizened and gray. His shoulders slumped; his hands began to tremble. Shea clasped his arm, half expecting she'd have to hold him up.

  "Cam?" she whispered urgently. "My God, Cam! What is it?"

  It seemed to take a very long time for him to hear her, longer still for him to raise his gaze to hers. When he did, there was utter desolation in his eyes.

  "It's nothing," he mumbled, and straightened as if he bore a yoke of iron across his shoulders. "It's nothing at all."

  Then without so much as another word to her, he turned and strode down the street.

  * * *

  Charlie Gilbert.

  That's all the note said. Charlie Gilbert—and with that hastily scribbled name Cam's past caught up to him.

  He stood in the front of the courthouse feeling as if the world had dropped out from under his feet, as if his life were hurtling past him like landscape past the windows of a speeding train. Memories of his parents and sister and home remained as perfect and fragile as a bouquet preserved under glass. The years of the war blurred to a single harrowing recollection. He remembered how he'd felt buried alive by what he'd found when he returned to Centralia, and how the breadth and grandeur of Colorado had resurrected him. He'd rediscovered the finer parts of himself in Rand's love and Emmet's friendship and—

  "Cam? My God, Cam!" Shea's voice sliced through the web of memories like a blade of Toledo steel. Her hand tightened on his arm. "What is it?"

  He looked down at the note, down at her. He saw the concern in her eyes—and all but drowned in a swell of unworthiness.

  "It's nothing," he said. "Nothing at all." Then, stuffing the paper in his pocket, he jerked away
and bolted up the street.

  Charlie Gilbert was running away.

  The note confirmed that Wes Seaver had recognized him in the courtroom today, just as Cam had known Seaver from the broken pieces of the photographic plate he'd found in Shea's studio. And now that Seaver knew who he was, the truth about those days at the end of the war was bound to come out.

  God damn me for a fool, Cam thought as he shoved his way through the crowd on the sidewalks. God damn me for thinking I could keep my secrets.

  He'd done such despicable things in the name of patriotism, in the name of war. Those two scrawled words brought all of it back. He could almost smell the smoke from the barns and fields they'd torched and see the crows circling low above the carnage. He could almost hear the sobbing of the women they'd terrorized and the pleas of the men they'd killed. He'd forfeited his soul in those dark days, abandoned his honor, and sold out the people he loved. And what was worse, he'd never had the courage to own up to what he'd done.

  Cam knew very well what Seaver would demand in return for his silence. He'd want his brother's life, his brother's freedom, and Cam couldn't give him that even if he'd wanted to.

  Yet if he refused, everyone he cared about would learn what he'd been and what he'd done. Learn how little he deserved their respect or their trust—or their love.

  Especially Lily.

  Without once considering where he was going, Cam found himself barreling up the stairs to his office. He charged through the anteroom and slammed the door to the inner office behind him going to ground as if the hounds of hell were at his heels.

  With blood pounding in head, he kicked his way through the familiar comfort of that cluttered room. He'd always been safe here, safe to be just what he was—but not anymore.

  The weight of disaster sat hard on him, and panic sang along his nerves. He flung his satchel across the office then struck out blindly, sending the stack of lawbooks on the corner of his desk thundering onto the floor.