He couldn’t have known that Marshall would hold up a train in broad daylight to get at her.
While other people were hiding their valuables, Laura ripped a flyleaf from the book she had been reading and scribbled Mark’s name and Jonathan’s address on it. There was enough room to include her cousin’s address too, since the train would reach Lexington first. That should be sufficient to identify him. Folding the precious note carefully, she tucked it into the pocket of Mark’s little coat, the one she had made for him. Jettie had laughed at her when she sewed it, but he looked just as cute as could be sitting there in his long coat with a tiny hat perched on his head, his bright eyes watching her trustingly.
Taking a deep breath, Laura picked him up and stood in the aisle, leaving her bag on the floor and pulling her long gray traveling skirt around her. She ought to be wearing mourning, but somehow there had never seemed to be enough time to dye the proper clothes. It wouldn’t matter now, if her guess were correct. Nothing would matter again.
Smiling at a nervous young couple she had noticed earlier, Laura stopped and lowered Mark to his wobbly little legs. “I’m afraid whenever I get nervous, I have to . . .” She paused delicately and nodded toward the partitions at the rear of the train hiding the crude facility for ladies. “Could you watch him just a moment? I hate to impose . . .”
The woman looked delighted at the sight of Mark’s charming grin, and the man threw her a grateful look for distracting her. Without trying to ascertain more of these people she had to judge by instinct, Laura lifted her skirt and hurried away.
If she were wrong, she could climb right back on the train before it pulled out. But if she were right, if that was Marshall and his gang out there, she wasn’t going to wait here and let them find her.
The terrain she had seen when the train went by wasn’t promising. But there was enough old blackberry bushes and locust saplings along the track to conceal her for a while if no one was looking. Without her holding Mark’s hand, Marshall would never recognize the child, so he should be safe enough with the young couple. She had only to conceal herself long enough to escape.
As she climbed from the train, Laura prayed she was wrong. The sun was still too bright in the September sky for this to be real. She had to be imagining things. She would look back and laugh at her silly fear someday. There was probably a cow on the tracks. Or the engineer had had too much to drink and decided he just couldn’t make it to the next stop. She was going to be embarrassed to death if . . .
A shot rang out farther down the line and a woman screamed. Laura pitched herself into the bushes at the side of the track. Praying as fast as she could for Mark’s safety, she pushed her way through the brambles, cursing her long skirts, protecting her face with her hands as she tried to find the densest thicket.
She used to make play houses in the bushes back home when she was a child, but she’d always had more sense than to choose blackberry thickets. Pain lanced her as thorns tore at her hands, ripped through her jacket, and whipped at her face. But panic pushed her on.
She could hear horses and men cursing. There was another shot, close by. Too close. Laura halted and held her breath. The blackberry leaves were fading with the cooler weather of September. She was small, but not so small that she would be entirely concealed if anyone looked close enough. She prayed they weren’t looking out here. Surely, if they knew she had taken the train, they were searching inside.
Perhaps they weren’t looking for her at all. Perhaps it was only her own enormous conceit that made her think anyone knew where she was or cared. But instinct was strong, and Laura had to abide by it.
A horse started this way. She could see its legs through the leaves. If she could see that much, anyone looking could see the gray of her suit. Please, don’t look, she prayed as the horse walked by. The rider shouted to someone farther down the line. They must have worked their way through the train by now. She could hear loud protests through the open windows of the car just above her. Men cursed, women wept. Please, Lord, let Mark be all right.
And then there were several men and horses almost within hand’s reach, and it was all over. A rough fist grabbed the back of her jacket and jerked. Laura threw her arms over her face until she emerged from the bushes, then attempted to free herself from the trap of her suit. A man with a pillowcase pulled over his head jumped from one of the horses and stopped in front of her, blocking any hope of escape. Before Laura could fight free, he raised his fist, and the blow ended any notion of anything at all.
Within view of the other horrified passengers, Laura slumped forward, and while they watched, the thieves carried her off to a waiting horse.
Chapter 39
Laura woke to throbbing jaw and aching head. Holding her eyes closed until she was certain her skull wouldn’t explode, she tried to determine where she was from the sounds around her. Male voices drifted from below, and she stirred uneasily, vaguely recalling the events of earlier. Alarm replaced the demands of pain, and she held her eyes closed until she could determine if she was alone.
She heard no one else in the room. A branch scratched at a window nearby, and she cautiously opened her eyes to survey the room’s growing darkness.
She must have been unconscious for quite a while. The sun was close to setting, judging by the gloom. She strained for some familiar sight, finding it in the scorched posts of the bed where she lay. Sallie’s bed. Uneasily Laura let her eyes roam to the gaping hole in the ceiling, then down to the broken and unboarded window below. A tree limb still protruded through the shards of glass. Cash had left this room untouched.
If Laura knew Marshall’s mind at all, he had brought her to the only bedchamber left with a decent bed. Cash had been systematically stripping these rooms when last she had been here. He would have taken the undamaged furniture first. Not liking the direction of her thoughts, Laura raised to a sitting position. Escape should be the only thing on her mind.
Gingerly holding her jaw, she stood and crossed to the window. The lightning had broken the burned elm at the crook of one of its mighty limbs. All the small branches had been burned off, so the limb through the window was fairly thick and heavy. But Laura couldn’t see where it connected to the tree, or if it connected. It could be completely severed from the trunk and just resting here at an awkward angle, waiting for a strong wind to blow it away. In desperation she might try climbing out on it, but she could be committing suicide by doing so. Vowing that suicide would be better than what Marshall had planned for her, Laura surveyed the room for other escape routes.
The hole in the ceiling looked promising, but it was easily five or six feet above her head. These rooms had been built with high ceilings to let the summer heat rise, keeping the air at human level cool. It made cleaning the ceilings nigh onto impossible, and put the escape hatch well out of her reach.
Laura glanced around for something to be used as a ladder, but the small chest of drawers would not make her tall enough to reach the uncovered lath, and the wardrobe was too large for her to move. She wasn’t at all certain that the lath would hold her, but it looked so much more promising than the room . . .
At the sound of approaching footsteps, Laura ran for the door to Sallie’s sitting room. Tugging at the knob, she cursed the water that had warped and swollen the old wood until it held tighter than a tick on a dog. Swinging around, her skirt swirling frantically about her ankles, she stared at the tree branch. Did she dare take it?
The point became moot as the door to the hall swung open. Framed in the light of a single candle, Marshall assumed an image of evil in her mind. A holster rode low on his hip, and he had disguised himself carefully for his role of respectable husband and responsible lawman. Wearing dark trousers and a long coat pulled back to reveal his gun, he stood in the doorway, savoring the sight of his captive as she backed toward the broken window.
“Well, wife, we’re home at last. It’s not the sight it once was, but I daresay once we find some lawyers to find ou
t where your cousin’s thieving husband hid the cash, we’ll bring it back to normal. He can’t have sold off all the furniture yet. I’m sure we’ll be quite comfortable once we find it. Until then, this will have to be our marriage bed. I’ll have some of the men move it across the hall in the morning. But it will suit for what I have in mind now.”
“You’re not my husband.” They weren’t the words she wanted to say, but they were the only words that reached her tongue as Marshall stepped into the room, shutting the door behind him. Her throat closed and fear froze her muscles as he advanced on her. She knew what he would do to her, and she knew she would die if she let him. The tree was looking more promising.
“The town thinks I am. We can take care of the technicalities later. You should be happy about that, Laura. Wickliffe was going to rob you blind and leave you to starve. I’m a better man than that. I’m going to get your home back for you, Laura. This will be our home. We’ll entertain like royalty once we get the place fixed up again. It’s a pity you can’t look a little more like your fancy cousin, but maybe in a new gown you’ll shine enough to look the part of mistress of Stone Creek.”
She didn’t intend to stand and talk with a madman. Swirling around, Laura lunged for the window and the tree. She wished there were time to rip off her petticoat, but she would manage. Tree-climbing had never been one of her talents, but she had sufficient inspiration to learn.
She screamed as Marshall caught her arm and jerked her back against him. She had forgotten how strong he was. His hand twisted cruelly, bringing her around until his foul breath was in her face. He had been a handsome man once, but meanness had marked his features until they were a caricature of themselves. Laura cringed as his thin lips twisted.
“The almighty Cash Wickliffe ain’t gonna help you now. Even as we speak, my men have a gun to his head.” He shifted her so his hand could scrape her breast. “Perhaps you’re not so plain as I remembered, wife. Now that you’ve got your figure back, you’re not so hard to look upon. Maybe whelping brats is good for you. If so, I’ll see that you always have one in your belly. There’s plenty of other female flesh around here to ease my needs when you swell up.”
His free hand caught in the ties of her traveling jacket, and his hand brushed her crudely through the bodice beneath. She jerked as if he had hit her, but Marshall’s gaze was avidly fixed on her bosom and he gave no sign that he noticed her fear.
As his fingers rapaciously tore at her clothing, Laura grabbed at the protruding tree, praying for a breakable branch. She would die before she let Marshall take what belonged to Cash alone, but she would damn well take Marshall with her before she did.
***
His informants had warned Cash that Marshall meant to act tonight, so he had been prepared for the brute who had attempted to stave his head in earlier at the tavern. He hadn’t been prepared for this.
Cash blanched a as he watched Marshall’s gang ride up to the house with a woman flung over the saddle of one of the horses. She was supposed to be long gone! But there was no mistaking Laura’s gray skirt and slender form. Even Breckinridge recognized her, and he grabbed Cash’s arm before he could break from their hiding place.
“You’ll only get yourself killed going in there alone. If you know how, practice praying.”
The wide sweeping lawns of Stone Creek offered next to no protection should he be foolish enough to race after Laura, but that didn’t stop Cash from contemplating it. The thought of her helpless in Marshall’s filthy hands tore at him.
He ripped his arm from Steve’s restraining hand. “If praying would stop the devil, the world would be a better place by now. I’m going in after her.”
He stepped forward, and then another expression crossed his face, a frozen look of fear and agony that pierced every man within a distance to see it. “Where’s Mark?”
“Who?” Too startled by the sudden change in the man before him, Breckinridge replied without thought.
“My son. Where in hell is my son? She wouldn’t have left town without him. My God, what has he done with my son?” And before anyone could stop him. Cash raced across the shadowed grass, rifle in hand.
Ward’s brother stood still a minute longer in the hidden depths of the trees lining the lane, watching the anguished man racing to certain death, letting pieces fall together in his mind with sharp little clicks. Never having fought in the war, Steve didn’t know the military commands needed right now, but he had years of experience at wielding authority. Turning, he spoke curtly to the man behind him, and his orders ran up and down the line of hidden figures.
Unaware of anything but the precious lives being snatched from him, Cash reached the safety of the old elm without being seen from the house. He could hear the crash of glass and male voices arguing, but no feminine screams yet split the air. He almost wished he would hear her. At least then he would know she lived. He couldn’t imagine Laura allowing anything short of death to part her from her son.
The shattered tree presented no problem in climbing. The angle was such at the top that he could practically run up the cracked limb. The only problem that presented itself was which limb to take. Choosing the one closest to the roof, Cash eased upward, testing the strength of the burned and broken wood beneath him.
It was a damned sturdy old tree. He would plant a dozen more like it one of these days. Swinging his foot to the roof, Cash located the gaping hole and lowered himself through it.
What he was doing was pure madness. He’d been up in the attic only once to inspect the damage. He didn’t know if the rotten boards could still withstand his weight. But he didn’t have time to find out. Finding handholds where he could, he crawled downward until his feet touched solid wood. Releasing his grip, he held his breath and took his weight on bent knees until he was certain the floor would hold him.
With solid wood beneath him, Cash studied the flickering light through the washed-out plaster of the ceiling. There hadn’t been a light upstairs when he had run toward the house. He had hoped to lower himself unnoticed into the breach. Luck was running against him if the room below was occupied. Grasping his rifle, Cash inched across the floor, trying not to creak the old boards. He would shoot his way through if he had to. He couldn’t leave Laura in Marshall’s hands. He had promised to protect her. It would be with his life, if necessary.
Praying Breckinridge would have the sense to storm the house once the shooting began, Cash eased to the fragile edge of the attic floor. Rotted lath and fallen plaster stretched out from this point toward the eaves. He would like to have some idea of who was there before he entered.
Panic forced his pulse into double time as he recognized the calm sarcasm of the female almost below him. Never would it occur to Laura to placate the criminal with feminine wiles. Once cornered, she would fight like a wildcat, as he well had reason to know. But Marshall wouldn’t be gentle, with her.
Terrified he would be too late, Cash crawled out along a beam, searching the candlelit gloom below for his target. The scene revealed brought a rush of rage and the taste of nausea to his tongue, but he forced his fury into control as he raised the rifle barrel. Whatever happened now, Marshall would die first.
***
As Marshall tugged at the tiny jet buttons of Laura’s bodice, she fell back against the tree and grabbed a broken branch. She didn’t fool herself into thinking she had the strength to kill him with a stick, but any distraction would suffice.
The crack of wood breaking caused Marshall to look up just as Laura swung her weapon downward. The blow glanced along the side of his head, and he howled in pain, grabbing at her shoulder to disarm her before she could swing the branch again.
Twisting Laura’s arm behind her, he jerked until she dropped the stick. As she gasped in shock, Marshall followed her gaze to the ceiling, the rifle, and the man holding it.
“You’re supposed to be dead, Wickliffe. You must have the lives of a cat, but you’ve reached the last of them. My men control this place
now. If you try to use that rifle, you’ll only harm Laura and bring my men running. There isn’t a thing you can do, so drop the gun.”
Cash cursed silently at the horror and fear in Laura’s pale face as their eyes met. He had meant for her to be gone from here when Marshall rode in. He had meant to blow the whole damned house up and Marshall and his gang with it. Laura was supposed to be far away when she heard of his perfidy.
But as usual, his plans had gone awry. Only instinct worked at times like these, and instinct as well as experience told Cash he couldn’t shoot Marshall while the scoundrel held Laura. Nor would he be of any use to Laura if he were taken captive too.
With a look he hoped would reassure, Cash and his rifle disappeared into the blackness of the attic.
Marshall cursed and shot at the hole where his nemesis had been. The shot that followed came from below, not above. Emptying a few more rounds into the ceiling, Marshall twisted Laura against him and peered through the window to the gathering darkness below.
Shooting erupted on the front lawn, but from this position they could see only the occasional darting movement of men running through the bushes. The hard arm around Laura tightened, and she held her breath in fear as Marshall hesitated over some decision. She strove to hear Cash in the attic, prayed Marshall’s wild shots hadn’t hit him, but over the barrage of gunfire, she could hear nothing.
She knew the moment Marshall made up his mind, and she steeled herself for the worst. She wanted to live. She had a son who needed her, and a love she had yet to share. But she would die if necessary to protect them both. And she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Cash would do the same.
So when Marshall held his gun to her ribs and told her to walk, Laura did as she was told. There wasn’t anything Cash could do for either of them while Marshall held that gun. Obedience seemed the better part of valor in this case.
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