But what did it matter?
He couldn’t have her.
She was likely engaged to another. A man that could guarantee her a good life.
She would never be safe with him as long as Mace Thorne was still alive.
As long as Mace Thorne was still alive.
The truth hit Luther then with the force of a rampaging bull. He stopped in his tracks and leaned against the wall of the apothecary, bracing his hands on his knees as the realization tore through him. There was, after all, a way that he could be with Victoria…
A heady determination stole over him. It formed in his gut like lead and settled there, heavy and impossible to ignore.
Mace Thorne was coming for him, searching for Luther with the intention of killing him. He expected Luther to run… Not to turn and fight.
Luther straightened up and rolled his shoulders back. He would just have to find his cousin first.
Lights twinkled from the windows of the small, square houses that sat at even intervals all around the shadowed streets. He moved stealthily past them, gazing around at the slanted and fallen street signs for Adam’s Street. He located the school, made his way along the road, and found the building over which hung a sign saying: LIVERY.
The proprietor was snoozing and not at all pleased to be woken, but he led Luther through the many stalls by the light of a large lantern and came to a stop beside four of them. “These’re what I got available for a few days’ rent,” he grumbled, eyeing Luther suspiciously, taking in Luther’s too-short pant legs and his lack of luggage. “You’ll have to put down the cost o’ the horse, case ye don’t bring it back.”
Luther nodded, and as he did so, his eyes caught sight of something that made his heart leap.
“Georgia!”
His horse whinnied in greeting as he approached the stall. She poked her long, velvety nose over the gate and snuffled his hand enthusiastically. “I thought the storm had taken her away!” he exclaimed, delighted. “She threw me that night. I’ve been… recovering with a friend. Where did you find her?”
The proprietor scratched his unshaven jaw. “She yours?” he grunted. “Young Mister Hershel brought her to me next day. Said he found her south of town with her lead all tangled in the brambles.”
“She hates thunder,” he said affectionately, stroking Georgia’s nose.
The man “Hmmphed,” loudly. “Well, better get yer saddle for ye,” he said.
An hour later, Luther was back astride his horse, his mind set. The proprietor of the livery had held onto Luther’s saddle bags, and he felt more like himself than he had in weeks as he placed his broad-rimmed hat on his brow and tugged his old trousers down over his boots. He needed to get as far from Silverpines as he could manage for the time being.
The livery owner followed Luther outside. “I don’t know where you’re planning on headin’, Mister, but I’d steer clear of Astoria, if I were you,” he said.
Luther looked down at the man’s face, illuminated in the light of the lantern in his hand. Trepidation leaked into his heart. “Why is that?”
“I been hearin’ tell that that no-good Mace Thorne and his band of miscreants have been causing ruckus in those parts recently.”
Luther tipped his hat. “Thank you kindly,” he said. He reached forward and shook the man’s hand.
As Luther kicked his horse forward and the lantern light slid away from his face, his eyes gleamed in the darkness. An evil sort of pleasure crept into his gut as he directed Georgia to the railroad tracks on the north side of town. He had a heading.
The sun was high in the morning sky when Luther and Georgia came to a halt outside of neat and tidy boarding house on the outskirts of Astoria.
Luther was utterly exhausted. His shoulder was throbbing as painfully as his heart, and his stubborn mind had at last admitted that a few hours of sleep would do him some good.
He looked around as he dismounted. There was a small, carefully lettered sign hanging beside the front gate that read: Landry’s Boarding House. He glanced down at his dirt-smattered clothes. They’d ridden hard. Georgia’s sides were smeared with dust and lather. He led her to a trough and hitched her to the post beside it before tramping up the front steps and banging his hand against the door.
He heard the sound of a woman’s voice calling out and an irritable response from a man who had to be her husband. Luther waited a moment longer before raising his fist to pound against the frame a second time. At last, a thin, white-haired individual tugged open the front door and fixed him with a contentious scowl.
“You haven’t got room for another, do you?” he asked without preamble. He was dead on his feet, and as he stood there, his shoulder gave another terrible throb. He winced. The man’s annoyed expression melted immediately into one of sympathy. “The wife’s just finishing up a bit of breakfast,” he muttered. “Come on in, sonny-jim.”
“Much obliged,” Luther nodded as he slid gratefully over the threshold.
His appearance in the boarding house kitchen was not greeted with enthusiasm.
Luther watched as the eyebrows of the only other boarder sitting at the dining room table flew up on his face. “Morning,” he grunted, avoiding the man’s eyes as his gaze flickered all around the room.
A woman, whom Luther supposed must be Mrs. Landry, was shuffling about near the stove. At the sound of his voice, she turned about and her wrinkled lips dropped open in astonishment. “I’ll not have riffraff in my home. You can get out of here, Mister—”
“Garrison,” he said. “Luther Garrison.” Suddenly overtly conscious of his disheveled appearance, he tugged his old sweat-stained hat from his head. “I’m really sorry for intruding on you all like this, but I’d be real appreciative if you can provide room and board for a couple of days.”
The man—Mr. Landry?—fiddled with his suspenders and rocked back on his heels, eyeing his wife. “Well. I reckon we can—”
“Absolutely not!” his wife barked. “Mr. Landry and I run a clean business here and I’ll—”
On a sigh, Luther reached into his coat and withdrew one of his little sacks of coin. His shoulder twinged as he dropped it onto the table beside a plate of flapjacks. “That’ll be enough to take care of my bill for a week,” he mumbled, hoping he wouldn’t be staying that long. He’d told Victoria not to wait for him… and she shouldn’t, but his heart trembled at the thought that she might marry before he could return. What if his plan succeeded? What if he took care of his cousin, and Mace was no longer a threat? She still wouldn’t want a man like you, he reminded himself. She had been mortified at the idea that her previous husband had been a thief. What would she say if she knew the extent of Luther’s own wicked deeds?
The sack of coins had vanished into Mrs. Landry’s apron pocket before Luther even had time to blink. Her incensed expression had slid off her face to be replaced by a delicate simper.
“Please be seated, Mr. Garrison,” she cooed at him with a coy smile. “I’ll get you a hot plate of food and coffee’s already on the table. I’ll have Mr. Landry get some hot water ready for your bath while we prepare you a room.”
Luther’s shoulders shook with suppressed amusement. Try as the rest of the world might try to fight it, deep down inside, they were just like him. The sight of a shining coin usually brought about quicker, kinder results than any other means of persuasion. He seized a chair from the dining room table and spun it around to straddle it between his powerful thighs.
His hunger had hit him in full force with the rapidity of a striking snake. It’d been an entire day since he’d last eaten. He poured himself two cups of coffee and drank them down before he spoke again. “That’s right good coffee.” He suppressed a belch and eyed the man before him. “Food any good?” he asked. The remaining flapjacks on the man’s plate made his mouth water.
“Mrs. Landry provides a fine meal,” he said, raising an eyebrow at Luther as if his question had been impertinent.
Luther couldn’t di
sagree once he’d tasted it. They exchanged names, and satisfied smiles as they finished eating.
“So, Tobias Clayborne, what brings you here?”
His companion wiped his hands neatly on a cloth napkin, his head cocked to the side as though deciding whether or not to answer Luther with the truth. “I’m—looking for someone,” he said at last.
Luther grinned. The two of them had something in common. “Who might that be?”
“Mace Thorne.”
Luther’s body tensed. His eyes slid over Tobias Clayborne’s clothes, analyzing his expression. There were only two reasons men ever bothered looking for his cousin. He let out a slow breath. “Why are you looking for Mace Thorne?” he asked, guessing the answer. “You got business with him or something?”
Tobias’s fingers twitched on the table before him, and his jaw tightened with a sudden anger. Ah, Luther thought. You’re out for revenge.
“Or something,” Tobias murmured evasively. “You heard of him?”
Luther snorted. “Everyone’s heard of Mace Thorne. Every time folks hear his name, they pull up stakes.” He straightened his back and fixed Tobias with an insolent stare. “But I figure a man like you would know about that. Mace do something to you? Stole your land or cattle?” He scraped idly at the remnants of sticky syrup on his plate.
“He killed my best friend and his new bride. That answer your question?”
Luther’s breath hissed in through his teeth. A memory he wanted nothing more than to forget flashed into his mind’s eye. A woman’s body, broken on the floor. Mace, wiping streaks of her blood from the tips of his fingers and onto his trousers, as casually as if he’d just done nothing more interesting than branding a new calf. Mace, smiling as he joked about the murders of the two people lying on the ground in that tiny house.
“You’re out for vengeance,” he whispered. “Can’t say I blame you.” His heart gave a lurch. If only he had stopped it sooner. If only he’d ran into that house and shot his cousin dead that day before he’d had the chance to harm them. He cleared his throat, fighting the press of sick, twisted guilt that had begun to boil beneath his blood. “How far you and your friend go back?”
He watched Tobias run a shaking hand through his hair. “Long time,” he answered after a short pause.
Luther lowered his head to stare at his boots. “Figures,” he said. “Real sorry about them.”
Tobias let out a cynical laugh, and in Luther’s mind, it rang out like a dire accusation. “Sorry’s not going to bring them back,” he spat. He lifted his coffee mug to his mouth and swallowed roughly.
“Sorry’s not gonna do a lot of things,” Luther agreed. Dare he tell Tobias that they were hunting the same man?”
He decided that he didn’t dare. What was to stop Tobias Clayborne from handing Luther over to the marshal? Nothing. And Luther deserved it and more, he knew, but Victoria’s face flashed before his eyes. If he was imprisoned, he would never see her again. Never. But perhaps he could do something to help.
“Well, I don’t know where Mace is, but I know where he’s going to be in a little over a month from now.”
Tobias looked up into Luther’s face, and he saw the rush of dark excitement that slid into the man’s eyes. “Where is that?” he asked.
Luther looked away, thinking over everything he had done. Would this little bit of information help Tobias? Would it help him?
“I do believe that he’s going to be spending some time with his wife,” he muttered, unable to force himself to acknowledge the stiffening in Tobias’s back, like a dog that had scented a fox. He seemed to hear the soft voice of the woman who had come to visit Victoria from far away. How could any woman ever have married the likes of his cousin? He considered for a moment that Mace’s wife might have been taken in by his cousin the same way he had been in the beginning. A bitter taste rose up the back of his throat.
“A wife?” Tobias recalled Luther to his purpose.
Luther grabbed the nearly empty pitcher of coffee and dumped the last dregs into his mug. “Yep,” he answered. “A genuine, come-home-to-flapjacks-and-bacon wife.”
Tobias’s expression mirrored Luther’s feelings on the matter. “What kind of woman marries a man like Thorne?”
Disgust swirled around in Luther’s mind. “Don’t know.” He rubbed his tired eyes. “Obviously, there’s something not right about her.”
“If he’s got a wife,” Tobias murmured, his voice slow and his eyes wide, as though a whole new vista of possibilities was opening up before them. “Then they have a homestead.”
Luther shrugged. He had no idea. The thought had occurred to him, but his plan couldn’t simply sit around and wait for Mace to return to Silverpines. He needed this dealt with quickly. He needed to hang onto the element of surprise just as long as he could. “Don’t know,” he lied smoothly. “Maybe I can find out for you.”
He wondered if Tobias would question him further, but he did not. Instead, Luther saw his jaw clench as he folded his arms across his chest and sat back in his chair.
“You find out and let me know? I’m thinking about paying a visit to Mrs. Mace Thorne.”
“What’re you going to do with her?” Luther queried as Tobias stood up. He didn’t want any harm to come to the woman if she was, indeed, as ignorant to Mace’s nefarious deeds as he had been in the beginning.”
“I’m not interested in her,” Tobias said. “But if I can use the woman to find her husband…” his expression darkened, and then it cleared a little as he focused on Luther again. “I’m much obliged to you for your assistance,” he said. “Be seein’ you around.”
Luther lifted his mug of cold coffee in response to Tobias departing wave, ignoring the molten guilt as it shifted and deepened within his stomach. “Pleasure chatting with ya,” he said as casually as he could.
When the man had disappeared, Luther stared at the opposite wall for a few moments. Mace was here somewhere, in Astoria, right now. A man on the hunt for revenge would only exacerbate Luther’s problem. He had to find a way of getting rid of Tobias Clayborne for the time being. Why not just let him take care of Mace? said an unbidden voice in the back of his head, but Luther’s brow furrowed at the thought. No. If anyone was going to take care of his cousin, it was going to be him. No one else was going to lose their life because of Mace Thorne; Luther was going to make sure of it.
“Silverpines,” he said leaning against the doorframe of the small shed outside the boarding house. He cocked his head to the side as Tobias’s head jerked up.
“What’s that?”
Luther tossed a rolled up newspaper towards him. “Take a look.”
He saw Tobias’s brow knit with confusion. “Unfortunate,” he said, indicating the front page, which was a full feature on the damage the two earthquakes had caused in Silverpines. “But what’s your point?”
Luther steeled himself to say the thing he had told himself that he must. “That’s the place where Mace will collect his wife,” he stated plainly, trying not to display a flicker of shame as he laid out his plan. “Look at this,” he added, handing Tobias a copy of the Groom’s Gazette.
Luther smirked as Tobias’s confusion deepened. “Groom’s Gazette?”
“Seems a number of women are advertising for husbands.” He spit into a nearby bale of hay. He had spotted Victoria’s advertisement there, alongside the number of other desperate pleas, but he didn’t want Tobias getting any funny ideas. “It makes you wonder if their beauty leaves much to be desired.” As if there was anything more beautiful.
Tobias turned his attention to the advertisements, flipping through the pages. “Some of these are from Silverpines. Maybe they’re looking for men since the article said most of the miners and the timber men had been killed.”
“Although I’m suspicious of the machinations behind the advertisements, I figure you can answer one. Once you arrive in Silverpines, you can settle your score with Mace Thorne.”
Tobias grunted, and Luth
er couldn’t tell if the idea had taken hold in his mind or not. He was silent for a long moment. “Maybe I will be answering one of these advertisements,” he said at last, and Luther had to hide his broad grin.
“Really?” he said, trying hard to keep any trace of sarcasm from his voice. “Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle.” A note of anxiety flared in the back of his mind. The last thing he wanted was for another suitor to present himself to the woman who had stolen his heart. “Do you know which one you’re going to respond to?”
Tobias tapped an advert on the left hand side of the page and Luther let out his breath. “Well, best of luck to ya,” he said, grinning. He left Tobias pouring over the adverts in the little shed and headed to the barn in search of Georgia, allowing a self-satisfied grin to slide over his face.
There. He’d done it. Now all that was left was for him to locate his cousin and stop Mace from ever reaching Silverpines. That, he thought, should ensure both Victoria, her friend, and Tobias Clayborne’s safety.
Chapter Eleven
Victoria couldn’t understand what was going on. It felt as though she had lost Jaxsom all over again. Her body began to settle back into the familiar patterns she had grown accustomed to, but now everything she touched was tinted with color. Blue. Sky blue, like the clouds roiling and breaking apart after a storm. Like the blue of Luther’s endless eyes. It was as though she had, in that brief time, forgotten what it was like to live without him.
He had only been gone for a handful of days, and yet… already the house felt empty without him there, like the light and laughter had vanished with Luther, disappearing into the dead of night without a trace.
Hattie, the town doctor, visited the day after Luther’s departure. She was a beautiful woman of Indian decent, with skin that seemed to glow as though flecks of gold had been blended beneath its surface. Her hair was dark, and pinned back away from her face so that she could see what she was doing when she was working to help God heal the injured and afflicted of Silverpines.
Wanted: Lawyer (Silverpines Book 8) Page 10