When she changed stages in Dallas leaving the other passengers heading south while she headed west, Nichole was sad to part. She felt she’d grown from the chance encounters and that somehow she was a little more of a lady.
The last leg of her trip was silent. She sat back alone in the coach and watched the scenery rolling by. The only other passenger had asked to ride up top and was probably swapping stories with the driver and man riding shotgun. She’d heard him say he was only going a few miles to his farm.
The land wasn’t as pretty as Kentucky. There was a wildness about the very air here. She’d felt it since Fort Smith. There were streams laced across the land near Dallas, but not an overabundance of trees.
Just as she found a comfortable position and was almost asleep, the stage rocked violently, throwing her against the windows, then forward into the empty seats.
Nichole swore and tried to straighten her clothing as the driver pulled to a stop.
“Sorry, miss. You all right in there?” he yelled.
“Yes.” Nichole balanced herself enough to open the door. “What happened?”
“Nothing much. Just a problem with the wheel. Me and Amos will have it fixed in a blink.”
Nichole looked at the man riding shotgun and guessed that unless he was far stronger than he looked, the driver had his work cut out for him. If she’d been in her normal clothes she would have offered to help, but one thing she’d learned in these days of travel was that men didn’t appreciate help from a woman no matter how much they needed it. The man who’d been riding up top was gone and Nichole guessed he must have climbed off when they stopped a while back.
Looking around, she noticed the road followed a creek. Along the water’s curves were clusters of elm and cottonwood and spruce. The grass was tall near the water and littered with branches from times past when the creek thought itself a mighty river for a few hours. The shelter of aging cottonwoods a hundred yards away lured her.
“I’ll be by the stream,” she said as she lifted her carpetbag and headed down the incline. “Just call when you’re ready to leave, or if you need any help.”
“You just rest yourself, miss. We can handle this!” the driver yelled from the boot of the coach.
Nichole lifted her skirts several inches off the ground and disappeared into the trees. She was careful to walk on the balls of her feet, leaving little trail to follow even though there was no reason for her to do so now.
After days of being around people, she needed to be alone. Leaving the natural path to the stream, she walked as Wolf had taught her to, without disturbing nature. After several feet she crawled beneath low branches and found what she’d hoped to find, a cool, shadowy cave made from brush and branches. The floor of her find was covered in dried winter leaves. Once she was settled, even a squirrel entering her cave would make a racket.
Spreading her jacket as a pallet, Nichole used her carpetbag as a pillow and her warm wool man’s jacket as her blanket. Within minutes she was soundly asleep for the first time in days. For the first time since she’d left Tennessee she felt at home.
The wind blew, ruffling the branches above her, and the stream rippled over a thousand tiny rocks only a few feet away. Birds, excited with early spring, returned to the tree above.
Nature muffled the screams of Amos and the driver as they battled and died. In her mind, the cries were only a faraway nightmare no longer strong enough to wake her. In her mind, she was alone and safe.
ELEVEN
ADAM WAITED FOR the stage over an hour, but none came. The wind tried to push him off the street and inside the stage office. Moisture in the air darkened his hair to black, but he waited, wanting to be there when the stage arrived. He turned his collar up and paced the dirt in front of the office so many times the clods became powder. Wolf wouldn’t have asked a favor if it hadn’t been important. And today was the first day something traveling by stage could have reached him from Tennessee.
What if Wolf asked him to keep something that was important to the South? Could he do such a thing, even as a favor? Would he? He owed Wolf for helping the night the twins were born. He’d heard men talk about how the South wasn’t licked yet and how rebs were planning to rise and fight again. Maybe Wolf had something he needed to keep safe until the uprising. What if it were hidden gold to buy guns for another fight?
No, Adam told himself, Wolf wouldn’t ask him to do such a thing. The man knew what side the McLains had fought on.
Adam continued his pacing, trying to imagine what would be so important to Wolf that he’d ship it to Texas for safekeeping.
“Doc!” Harry yelled from the Butterfield office. The young man was always moving, dodging invisible bullets with his nervous youth. “Come around to the barn quick! The stage has been attacked, and a rider’s tellin’ all about it.”
Adam joined a crowd suddenly surrounding the large livery at the edge of town.
Harry jogged by his side. “Rider came in a few minutes ago. Said it looked like the coach busted a wheel and made itself a sitting duck about three hours east. Comanche or maybe even Comancheros burned what they could, then killed old Randy, the driver, and Amos who was riding shotgun.”
The young man fought down emotion by staying in constant motion. “I knew them both, I did.”
Rocking back on his heels, Harry added, “I figured since you were waiting for the stage, you’d want to know.”
“Were there any passengers?” A nagging feeling began to throb in the back of Adam’s head. He could think of only one thing Wolf valued and protected like a mother hen… Nichole.
“Telegram said there was a gentleman and a lady. I don’t know if they was traveling together.” Harry looked suddenly sad for the doctor who’d been waiting so long. “The rider didn’t find any other bodies near the broken-down stage. Maybe the passengers got away or the Indians took her as a captive. If the robbers were Comancheros, she’ll be in Mexico before you can catch up to them and it’s anybody’s guess what happened to the gentleman.”
“Or maybe the rider just didn’t find the bodies,” someone in the crowd volunteered. “I know I wouldn’t stay around to search the place too closely, and they could have drug a woman off to the side for a while before they killed her.”
Adam rubbed his brow. If it were Nick, she could have been traveling as a woman, or a man. He couldn’t very well ask about a passenger when he couldn’t name the gender.
“If the Comanche have her, they’ll trade her, but if those thieving Comancheros have her, you might as well count her dead,” another man offered. “As for any man, he’d be killed outright.”
“Fine time for the sheriff to be gone,” someone mumbled.
“The deputy’s organizing a group to go take a look!” a man at the far side of the crowd yelled. “He don’t want to, but some of us reminded him that, until the sheriff gets back from Austin, Deputy Russell has his job to do.”
As if on command, Russell stood at the front of the crowd and announced he’d be going out to survey the crime scene and he expected every able-bodied man to go with him. The crowd moved away. A few mumbled about Russell being worse than any outlaw they might find. Some went to collect horses and weapons, others to spread the news.
Within an hour a dozen volunteers waited to leave. Adam was among them. He wasn’t sure if the shipment would be Nichole, but he had to know. If she’d been on the stage, she wouldn’t have died without a fight. There would be signs. If she’d been there, even dressed as a woman, she would have been armed. If she’d been dressed as a man, she might be the “gentleman” who disappeared.
Three hours later the posse saw the smoke from the still-smoldering stagecoach. The horses were gone and the cargo scattered. Two bodies lay facedown atop the overturned stage. Since there was no evidence they’d been tied, they must have already been dead before they burned. There was no telling which had been the driver, nor did it matter.