by Kristin Holt
“I’m sorry—”
“Gertie. The name’s Gertie.”
Josie didn’t know how to respond, what to say, how to acknowledge the woman had just given them her name. After she’d caught them buying her clothing and boots.
“Miss Gertie?” Adam drew the woman’s attention. “Would you mind if I set your clean laundry on the sofa?”
Apparently he had no trouble figuring out what to do with the woman’s name.
She shrugged. In the lamplight she could’ve been anywhere from thirty to fifty. Lean and hard as the land she lived on, as sun-baked as the soil surrounding her adobe home.
So very different than the tenements of Lawrence and absolutely nothing like the extravagant wealth of Cannon Mining’s third-generation owner.
Just how were they going to find their way out of this mess?
Adam set the clothing down, straightened his dirt-streaked jacket and held up his hands as if Miss Gertie still held him at gunpoint.
“Mind if I ask you for a drink of water for my wife and me? We’re both powerful thirsty.”
Water? All Adam could think of was water? Didn’t he have about twenty-seven questions for this odd woman who’d essentially invited them into her home… with a rifle as persuasion?
To Josie’s surprise, Gertie rose, turned her back to them both— what an unbelievably strange woman this was— and filled two tin cups with water from a wooden bucket on what passed for a sideboard.
Gertie turned about and set both cups at her table as if she’d just offered the finest tea service imaginable.
“Do have a seat, Mr. Taylor.” She eyed them both, took in their dirty, tattered clothing in one long sweep. Once Adam had taken the seat beside Josie, said his thank-yous and downed his water, Gertie said, “Now, suppose you two tell me who tried to kill you?”
“Now don’t look at me like that. I read.” Gertie dropped into a chair that had been awkwardly fashioned and upholstered, perhaps out of rough lumber and denim fabric. “In fact, I read the newspaper about you two being in the territory, on a wedding trip. But by the looks of the state of your fancy clothes, and the fact you’ve already been so helpful providing your names, it’s obvious as a smeller you two are on the run.”
Unsure exactly how his altercation with the woman had turned from foe to friend, Adam thought it best to get as much information from Gertie as possible before she decided to point a gun at them again.
“What did the paper say?” he asked.
“Stuff and nonsense, mostly.”
But he needed to gather as much information as possible, and rehydrate. “Mind if I refill my cup?”
“No, now you go right on ahead.” Gertie turned her smile on Josie.
Adam filled his own cup, then Josie’s, watching the older woman’s wheels-a-turnin’, ready to ask a question.
“What?” Josie didn’t seem put off by Gertie’s unconventional welcome or anything she’d done thus far. “What is it?”
“Tell me something Mrs. Taylor. ‘Cause I’m wondering if it can possibly be true. The newspaper article said you poisoned your husband’s knife wound and when that didn’t work, you tried to suffocate him in his sleep.”
Josie surged to her feet. Her chair toppled over backward, clattering on the floor as if she’d thrown it there. Her eyes rounded and her face suffused with color. “Me?” She gasped. “I did no such thing. I stitched him up after some fool attacked and sliced my husband’s ribs, but it was a superficial wound.”
“Settle down,” Gertie said in the most gentle, feminine tone Adam had heard her use. “Settle yourself down.”
“But I didn’t do any of those vile things.” Anger choked Josie’s voice, made her sound nearly as choked up as she’d been when in full-blown tears. “Why would someone write lies about me?”
Having lost all worry over Gertie and her guns, Adam rounded the table and put his arms around Josie. He cuddled her close and tucked her face against his chest. He kissed the crown of her dusty hair.
Even beneath the rubble of the day, the craziness of their circumstance, she smelled like Josie… like the beautiful memories of the woman he loved.
“I know you didn’t poison me, and that’s all that matters.”
“What I want to know,” she managed between sobs, “is why anyone in… this place… where are we?… even knows about the knife wound. How is that possible?”
Adam didn’t know.
“Thank you.” He smoothed a few stray hairs back into line and simply absorbed her sweet face. He’d nearly lost her. More than once.
No matter what, he had to find a way to ensure no more accidents happened. He took his role as her protector seriously, and thus far, their whole wedding trip had been a disaster. It sure seemed like someone was out to get them.
Speaking of that someone… what had Gertie said in her first question about those they ran from?
Suppose you two tell me who tried to kill you?
“Gertie,” Adam waited for the older woman to meet his gaze. She might be a little on the crazy end of the spectrum, but she was the best they had. “If you know the paper’s full of stuff and nonsense, why did you ask who tried to kill us?”
Chapter Seventeen
Josie nearly jumped through her skin when a noise erupted from the second room in the house. Clicking and clacking and making the most unnatural commotion she’d ever heard.
Heavens to Betsy.
A telegraph station.
In Gertie’s home.
“Why do you have a telegraph?” Weren’t telegraph offices in the railway stations? Or at mining camps?
“Hold your horses.” Gertie bounded to her feet and ran for the other room. She pushed the door open so hard it rebounded off the wall and bounced nearly closed.
The clatter kept coming.
Josie could barely read the printed word in English. She’d had no exposure to Morse Code and couldn’t have told one message along the wire from another… but she did comprehend one thing.
This wasn’t a short note.
Somebody kept up the transmission.
Josie turned to Adam, who still had his arms about her, his hands at her waist. She loved it when he stood near like this. It was like he gave her something to hold onto, an anchor, support. He had the kind of sturdiness of hundred-year-old oak trees.
One glance at the steadiness in his too-blue eyes and she somehow knew they’d find a way out of this. He’d figure it out. She trusted him.
He’d noticed the stark difference between Gertie’s first question and the report she gave from the newspaper.
“Not gonna happen.” Gertie’s voice had pitched low again, threatening, full of menace. “Not gonna happen.”
She clung to Adam, shared a brief worried glance. Oh, yeah. The minute that transmission stopped, if Adam didn’t ask her what kind of information had to come along the wire at this late hour, then she most certainly would.
Gertie came charging out of the second room, her telegraph-and-bedroom, Adam could see by the glimpse of a neatly made cot.
She grabbed a pouch of ammunition, made apparent by the single bullet that fell out of the leather draw-string bag and rolled over the floor. Much to his surprise, she thrust it at him, ripped the rifle off the wall and pushed it into his hands. “Douse the light.”
Adam swallowed, hard.
The light tunneled, then disappeared into the darkness. Josie must’ve obeyed Gertie’s order.
“Gertie?” Adam called to the woman who’d darted back into the bedroom— at least he thought she had. You want to tell me what’s going on? What did that message say that has you so riled up?”
Just then another transmission came clicking across the wire in a barrage of dots and dashes. If he lived through this crazy week, he was going to learn Morse.
Not that he’d ever need it again.
Because he and Josie were going to live a long, prized, quiet life somewhere.
But first they had to survive t
his.
He fumbled his way through the rifle, ensuring it was loaded. He slung the pouch of ammunition over his head to make for easy access. The bag hung open, right at his breastbone. A little high for comfort, but it would do.
“Gertie?” He called.
“I’m kinda busy.”
He found his way to the door, wished for the slightest bit of moonlight to see her by. He couldn’t be sure in the near pitch-black, but he thought she might have been operating the telegraph key rather than just listening.
“Gertie— so help me, if you’re telling somebody where we are I might have to hold you at gunpoint.”
“Shush up.” Gertie kept clicking away.
Josie touched his arm.
A rush of protectiveness, every bit as powerful as it had been those last minutes in the rail car, in those moments where he’d stared death in the face and had leaped, on the off chance of saving Josie’s life, struck him and he nearly swayed.
He kissed her brow, her cheek, her eyelid. “I love you, Josie Taylor. No matter what happens, you’ve got to believe that.”
She grabbed his collar, tugged his head down for a kiss and touched her lips to his. Something told him he didn’t have the luxury of time to stand there, kissing his wife, that he ought to have his eyes and ears trained on the perimeter of Gertie’s homestead, ought to be watching for any signs of riders.
Or gunmen sneaking up like thieves in the night.
If Gertie had seen or heard something to alert her to his approach with Josie, chances were, if he focused his attention, he’d be able to see someone else creeping close.
But… Josie’s kiss. Hot and powerful and full of an emotion he could only assume was love. He broke the kiss, long enough to reassure her, to remind her of his love for her.
“I love you,” Josie whispered. Crystal clear. Certain.
His heart skipped a beat, then two. Elation filled him with wonder. Perfectly, marvelous awe.
“Nobody’s gonna die here tonight.” Gertie. Standing nearly as close to him as Josie was.
Adam jumped. Josie flinched.
Could the woman see the dark?
“Gertie!” Adam hissed, unwilling to yell in case the bad guys were already within ear-shot. “Do you mind? We’re having a tender moment here and you’re not giving us an ounce of privacy.”
“Actually.” Josie cleared her throat, a delicate, ladylike sound. “I told you I love you last night. But you’d already passed out.”
Gertie patted his chest— more like thumped it with an atta-boy kind of congratulations. Then the woman shoved past and into the main room of her home. She clattered around in the kitchen until she found something… a pistol from the sound of the rounds she loaded in the chambers.
“What are we doing?” Adam needed answers. “You going to tell me what that transmission was all about?”
“No time.” Gertie brushed past again, dragging a gentle breeze along behind her scented with campfire and gun oil and clean soap.
What an odd woman.
Adam grabbed Josie by the hand and followed their hostess. “Gertie— I can’t defend us against an enemy I don’t understand. I need you to tell me what’s going on.”
Gertie must’ve dropped low, maybe pulling something from beneath her cot because a clatter of mischief sounded from the floorboards.
“A-ha!” Gertie scuttled back, must’ve pushed to her feet because her hot breath washed over Adam’s neck. “Take this.” She pushed something into Adam’s already full hands.
Another pistol.
But it was already warm. Must’ve been the first pistol she’d claimed in the kitchen.
So what did she pull out from beneath her bed?
“Can you shoot?” Gertie demanded of Josie. “Surely you can handle a weapon.”
“Yes?”
Adam sure as shotin’ heard the question mark on Josie’s answer, but Gertie seemed not to because she muttered “good” and darted away.
Prying an answer at out Gertie was as impossible as forcing the clock to turn backward. He might as well cut his losses, accept he’d never hear a straight answer, but he simply couldn’t shake the feeling that something big, something bad was about to happen.
“Gertie, I’m only going to ask you once more. What the hell is going on?”
Chapter Eighteen
Josie’s hands trembled around the pistol she didn’t officially know how to use. But how hard could it be? From what she’d seen, all one had to do was aim and pull the trigger.
She’d heard a low rumbling… thunder? An oncoming train?— were they near the tracks? For the past few seconds when the sound finally clarified and settled.
Horses. Dozens, from the sound of it. Approaching Gertie’s house at breakneck speed.
“Get down!” Gertie flitted past, palmed Josie’s head and pushed her to her knees.
Somehow, Josie and Adam were separated. She crawled into the deeper shadows in the far corner at the front of the house.
Her heart pounded so hard and her breathing rasped so loudly in her hears she couldn’t tell whether the horses approached from the front or the back.
She and Adam had circled the house, listening carefully for any signs of dogs.
Dogs!
Why on earth weren’t Gertie’s dogs— the little ones asleep in the opposite corner— barking up a storm? What had to happen for those dogs to alert their owner?
Lessie pushed back into the corner even tighter. She held the pistol up and at the ready, her finger on the trigger but the barrel pointed at the ceiling. It wouldn’t do to shoot herself or Adam… or even Gertie.
She didn’t know if this little gun held six shots or more, but she wouldn’t waste a single one. And she wouldn’t give away her presence by doing something foolish like flinching and setting the gun off before she was ready.
She eased her finger off the trigger and rested it against the loop of metal she thought was called a trigger guard.
The thunder of many horses hooves was joined by the jangle of harnesses and the shouts from men. The sounds came from the open rear windows and from the front of the house at her back. The raiders— posse?— circled the house.
More calls. Someone fired a gun.
Josie stifled a shriek.
Where was Adam? Where was he?
One of the riders must’ve carried a torch because the door yard became brighter. The rider circled the house, sending beams of firelight through the front window, kitchen window, then back…
From where she sat, the burning torch gave her a clear view of the crowd on horseback outside. Dozens of men.
Dozens.
The firelight doubled, tripled— were they lighting the outbuildings on fire? Or just more torches? The odor of cloying wood smoke and burning kerosene carried in on the breeze. Shouts from the men increased with the level of light.
Already, the blazing torches lit the yard as if it were noonday.
Josie forced herself to search the house’s interior for signs of Adam or Gertie or the dogs.
Nothing. Where had they gone?
Why hadn’t Adam dragged her into hiding with him?
She should hide. Somewhere far more remote than this. She should make herself harder to find.
The sofa’s bare legs hid nothing. No closet or cabinet in the spartan room.
She trembled so hard the gun flopped in her hands like a live fish fighting for freedom and to escape back into the water where it could breathe.
Outside, one of the riders shouted. His bellow sounded like an order.
“Adam Taylor!” A masculine voice bellowed from the mob. “Come out with your hands up. We know you’re in there. And bring your bride with you.”
“Five!” The mob allowed less than five seconds before someone started a countdown.
Where was Adam?
“Four!”
She refused to believe he’d left her.
“Three!”
To her horror, a torch flew, en
d over end, until it thudded heavily on the roof of the adobe house.
They hadn’t so much as reached one, much less zero in their count.
The stick and burning rag knotted on the end rolled drunkenly down the pitch. It fell past the window into the dirt of the yard.
But the damage was done.
Fire!
The house would burn. Surely in this arid place, without rain in so long a time, the house would go up like tinder.
Reminds her of the fire her sister told her about in the factory— and how terrifying it had been. Some of the women had still dreamed about it in the nights following.
If she ran out the back door, she’d run straight into the waiting men on horseback, and by all that was holy, the men were not friendly.
From the shouts and light she knew they circled the house completely. To bolt out the front door would not yield anything better.
If she stayed put, she’d burn. She couldn’t leave and she couldn’t stay.
“Adam!” She crawled toward the bedroom door, her skirts impeding her movement. “Adam!”
The dogs had left their corner.
Where had the animals gone?
She shoved against the bedroom door. Already the room filled with smoke.
A window in the main room of the house exploded. Glass shattered and tinkled onto the flooring and furniture. The fire grew, consuming greedily and making a horrendous noise.
Overhead the beams swayed, groaned.
“Adam!”
Josie coughed. Even this close to the floor the air was hot, thick, acrid.
A crash in the main room had her whirling. Had the bad guys come in after her? Had the ceiling fallen?
Someone— definitely someone— grabbed her ankle.
She whirled, her heart stuttering to stop.
Adam.
Adam dragged her by her ankle closer to the cot against the wall.
Beneath the bed, a trunk lid was open. Adam gestured for her to follow, the noise from the fire and the mob outside so great there wasn’t a hope of hearing him above the din.
Adam climbed into the trunk.