Joseph accepted the book and opened it. “A Bible?”
“A mourner’s Bible. It just has passages meant to ease your mind at a time like this. Try to live with the way things turned out. That’s the only choice you’ve got. Nothing you can do will put it out of your mind and nothing you can do will make it any better. You hear me? Nothing.”
Joseph’s face twisted into an expression of bitter anger. Kneeling in the fresh dirt and lowering his head, he said, “I’ll just have to see about that.”
Nick took a few steps back and left the other man with his wife and daughter. There would be time for talking later.
FOURTEEN
Catherine woke up the next morning to a gentle yet insistent tugging on her arm. She stirred just enough to open her eyes and see less light drifting in through the bedroom window than usual. Figuring that she had at least another half hour or so before needing to climb out of bed, she started to roll on her side and get back to sleep.
The tugging continued.
When she opened her eyes again and rolled back over to find someone staring at her, she nearly cleared the bed.
“I’m hungry,” Sam said.
“Good Lord,” Catherine gasped. She sat up and did her best to pull her nightgown over the proper spots so she could safely remove her covers in front of the child. “You scared me, Sammy.”
“Sorry. I’m hungry.”
“All right. Let’s see what we can do about that.”
Nick was still in bed, which told her it was even earlier than she’d thought. He began to stir, but was appeased by a few little pats on his back from Catherine.
The floor seemed especially cold that early in the morning. In fact, the whole cabin felt different. It was almost as if the place itself was still sleeping and she had to sneak so as not to wake it all up. She found herself whispering to the little boy even though it would have taken cannon fire to rouse Nick.
“How about some eggs?” she asked. “Would you like that?”
Sam nodded and situated himself on one of the two benches at the dining table.
Without even thinking about it, Catherine poured a cup of milk and set it in front of Sam before tending to the food. She glanced over to the bed they’d set up for Joseph and his son in a corner of the room and saw a figure huddled under the blanket.
“You’re up early,” she said to Sam. “Didn’t you sleep well?”
“I had bad dreams,” Sam replied after drinking noisily from his cup. “About my sister.”
“Well, those won’t last long. When they’re gone, all you’ll remember is the happy times you had with her. Your mother, too. That’s the way they’d prefer it.”
“Really?”
She nodded over her shoulder at him and shifted her attention back to fixing breakfast. It took a bit more concentration than normal to keep from spilling anything as her tired hands fumbled to light the stove.
After finishing off his milk, Sam asked, “Will you take care of me?”
“What do you need, Sammy?”
“When Pa left, he said you’d take care of me.”
Catherine was still cracking an egg when those words finally sank in. Her hand was frozen in place as she looked back over to Joseph’s bed. Egg white oozed over her fingers as she squinted into the shadows. The shape under the blankets wasn’t moving or making the slightest bit of noise.
Letting the egg drop, Catherine rushed over to the bed and reached out to tap the figure lying there. She instantly realized that the shape under the covers actually was formed of the blankets themselves, which had been mussed and piled up in one spot. Out of sheer disbelief, she lifted them and looked at the bed.
“Where’s your father?” she asked.
Sam was sitting in his spot, swinging his legs from the bench. “I don’t know. He said he’d be back, but maybe not for a long time. Kind of like when he rode away and left me at home with Laurie.”
“Back from where?”
After thinking it over for a second or two, Sam shrugged his shoulders and tipped the cup all the way back for the last drop of milk. “Are you still making eggs?”
Catherine bolted into her bedroom, grabbed Nick’s shoulder and shook him vigorously.
“What the…?” Nick grunted as he slowly emerged from his sleep.
“You’ve got to wake up, Nick. Wake up right now!”
The urgent tone in Catherine’s voice snapped Nick’s eyes open and got his arm flashing toward the gun under his bed. The revolver was smaller than his modified Schofield, but his hand clasped around it tightly enough for him to thumb back the hammer without too much difficulty.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Joseph’s gone,” she told him.
“What?”
“Joseph’s gone.”
“What about the boy?”
“Sam’s at the table,” Catherine explained. “But Joseph’s not here. Sam said that he left.”
Nick pulled in a few breaths and gathered his thoughts. Since there wasn’t a fire or someone kicking in his door, his brain needed a moment to hit its stride.
“Put that gun down,” Catherine said.
“Huh?”
She reached out to push his hand down and ease the gun from his fingers.
“What’s on your hands?” he asked.
“Breakfast. I’ll finish cooking it while you find that boy’s father.”
Nick swung his legs over the side of the bed and struggled to clear his thoughts. “Maybe he just went into town.”
“No,” Catherine said emphatically. “He left. I can just tell. He even told Sam he might not be back for a long time.”
“Or at all.”
“What did you say?”
Nick’s eyes had cleared and he was more awake than if he’d been splashed with cold water. He burst into motion and started pulling on his clothes and boots as though the cabin had caught fire.
Catherine rushed to get in front of him before Nick bolted out the door. “What did you mean by that?” she asked. “Answer me.”
Rather than answer her right away, Nick left the bedroom and headed straight toward Sam. Since the boy was watching both of them, Catherine restrained herself from saying what she’d meant to say.
“Where did your father go?” Nick asked as he knelt down to the boy’s level.
“He didn’t tell me.”
“What did he tell you?”
Sam looked up as if the answer he needed was written on the ceiling. “He said he loved me and that I should stay here where I’ll be cared for. He also said I could go to Uncle Ken’s house if you didn’t want me to stay here. I like Uncle Ken I guess, but are you going to take care of me?”
Gently holding onto the boy by both arms, Nick made sure Sam was paying attention before asking, “What else did he say?”
“That he might not be back for a long time and that he loved me very much and was leaving to do something for Ma and Laurie.”
Nick let go of the boy and straightened up again. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered as he ran back into the bedroom. Before Catherine could ask another question, he stormed out of the bedroom, buckling his holster around his waist.
“What are you doing, Nick?” she shouted.
That wasn’t enough to get Nick to stop, so she followed him out the front door.
“Wait! Damn it, Nick just wait a second and tell me what the hell is going on!”
Her tone caught Nick’s attention and caused him to pause while lifting the saddle onto Kazys’s back.
“Do you even know where you’re going?” she asked, placing herself between her husband and his horse.
“I’ve got a hunch.”
“Then why not tell me? First Joseph disappears and now you want to follow. If you’re going to be my husband, then you should act like it, for God’s sake!”
After cinching up the saddle, Nick asked, “Did Joseph go anywhere recently?”