She took a couple of steps, then stopped, unsure what to do next. If an intruder was inside, was it better to wait where she was or to go in and confront him? Should she give some indication of her return or proceed as quietly as possible?
If Hugh was with her, he would know what to do. But he wasn’t with her. Not at this moment. Perhaps never again after Monday.
She drew a deep breath. She couldn’t think about that now. “You in the house,” she called. “Come outside. With your hands up.”
No one came out. Bandit looked at Julia.
“Is someone in there, boy?”
The dog took her question as a command, moving forward, sniffing and listening as he went. Julia waited, heart in throat, until he’d disappeared through the open doorway. When nothing happened, when Bandit gave no cry of alarm, she walked toward the house, rifle at ready. A quick glance upon entering the parlor revealed nothing out of place, there or in the kitchen.
“Hello?”
No answer. No unusual sounds.
I’m being silly
. She released a deep breath and lowered the rifle.
Bandit reappeared in her bedroom doorway.
“I must have left the door unlatched and it blew open.”
The dog gave a little whine, then turned and disappeared into her bedroom a second time.
“Hugh will be hungry when he returns. I should get a start on our supper.” She leaned the rifle in the corner. “Just as soon as I
wash up.” She headed for her bedroom. “Bandit, are you —” The words died in her throat.
Her bedroom was in shambles. Sheets and blankets torn off the bed. Clothes pulled from her dresser and wardrobe. Books strewn across the floor. Her keepsake box upended, envelopes and other items scattered hither and yon.
Then her heart stopped.
The money box. It was on the floor, too, the lock broken, the lid open. Empty.
“O Lord,” she whispered. “No.”
She went to the metal box and picked it up. Her money gone. Taken. Why hadn’t she hidden it better? Why hadn’t she —
Hopelessness washed over her. Without that money, she was ruined. She couldn’t pay her taxes. She would be forced to sell or lose it. Charlie would get the ranch, just as he’d told her he would. She sank onto the bed, tears pooling in her eyes.
“What do I do now?”
Bandit came to her and laid his muzzle on her knee. The dog’s affectionate action caused Julia to cry in earnest, emitting soft sobs every so often while stroking Bandit’s head.
Where was Hugh? She would feel better if he were with her. She wanted Hugh more than anything right now.
A sound from outside — a footfall on the porch — caused her to catch her breath once again.
“Mrs. Grace? Are you in there, ma’am?”
She released the breath. Lance Noonan’s voice. “Yes, sheriff. I’m here. Just a moment.” She swiped at her damp cheeks with her fingertips. The sheriff. Had God sent him in her time of need? Could he possibly find the thief before it was too late? She drew a deep breath, set the money box aside, and left her bedroom.
When the sheriff saw her, he removed his hat. “Afternoon, Mrs. Grace.”
“Good afternoon.”
“I’m sorry to bother you, but I … I had some disturbing information come across my desk a couple of days ago. I would’ve come to see you then, but I heard you were driving the cattle to the Double T.”
“It sounds urgent, sheriff. What is it?”
“Is Mr. Brennan still working for you?”
“Hugh? Yes. Well, no. Not really. I hired him for the cattle drive. We got back yesterday, and he plans to leave on Monday.”
Unless I can change his mind
.
“Is he around now so I could talk to him?”
“Not just now. Why?”
“Seems he’s a thief, ma’am. Jewels and such. And he served time in an Illinois prison for attempted murder. Stabbed a man in the back during a robbery.”
“I don’t believe it.” Even as the words came out of her mouth, she thought about the missing money and the disarray in her bedroom. Doubt bubbled to the surface. Where
was
Hugh?
“It’s true, all right. I confirmed it myself.”
She remembered Hugh, early that morning, standing almost exactly where the sheriff stood now. How he’d picked up Angus’s mother’s ring and told her it was worth more than the cattle she’d sold. It had seemed strange at the time that he should know a ring’s value. And hadn’t he watched her closely the day before, after she’d put the cash into the money box? Was it possible …? No. No, she refused to believe it. It wasn’t true. Hugh wouldn’t steal from her.
A tiny sob escaped her throat.
“Mrs. Grace, are you sure everything’s all right?”
“No, sheriff,” she answered softly. “It isn’t. I —” She looked toward her bedroom. “I’ve been robbed.”
“What was taken?”
“All the money from the sale of the cattle.” She motioned for him to follow her. “I returned a short while ago to find this.”
Sheriff Noonan stopped in her bedroom doorway, his gaze taking in the mess the thief had left behind. “Anything else missing besides the money?”
Julia started to shake her head, but uncertainty stopped her. She hadn’t really looked after seeing the empty money box.
She knelt on the floor by the upended keepsake box. She retrieved the letters first and put them back where they belonged. Her grandmother’s necklace peeked out at her from beneath her bedstead. A little more searching located the silver cross under her pillow on the floor.
But where was the ring? Angus’s mother’s ugly ring.
“Mrs. Grace?”
She looked up.
“Something else is missing.” It wasn’t a question this time.
She nodded. “A ring. But I … I don’t know that it was worth anything much. It belonged to Angus’s mother.”
“Maybe you’d better tell me where I can find Mr. Brennan so he and I can have a talk.”
Tears once again stung her eyes. “I don’t know where he is. I came back a short while ago and his horse was gone.”
“Mind if I have a look at his bunk?”
“Of course not.” She stood. “I’ll show you where he stays.”
Hugh didn’t do this. He couldn’t do this. I know he couldn’t do it
.
She repeated the words in her mind again and again as she left the house, crossed the yard, and entered the barn. She believed the words right up until the moment she opened the door to the room
that held the bed, lantern, table, and chairs. But nothing else. All of Hugh’s personal effects were gone. No saddlebags. No clothes hanging on hooks. No Bible.
From behind her, the sheriff said, “Looks like he decided to leave before Monday.”
Julia found it hard to draw breath.
“Guess we know who took your money and ring.”
She wanted to wail. She wanted to scream. She wanted to curl up and die.
“Love is a risk,” Rose’s voice whispered in her memory. “But it’s a risk worth taking.”
Her friend couldn’t be more wrong. It wasn’t worth the risk. Nothing could be worth the way Julia felt now. Nothing.
Hugh awakened with a start, heart racing. A nightmare? No, he hadn’t been dreaming and he wasn’t afraid.
He sat up and looked around. His horse stood, head low, near a tree. A nearly full moon illuminated his campsite. The air was filled with the sound of flowing water from the stream a stone’s throw from Hugh’s bed on the ground. The fire had burned down to embers.
Something had awakened him. Something like … like a whisper. Only not a whisper. There was no voice. There was no sound above the gurgle of the creek.
Go back
.
The words weren’t just in his head. They filled him to the brim. It was God’s voice he heard. He knew it with more certainty than he’d ever known anything in his life.
Go back
.
Julia needed him, and even if she didn’t love him, even if
she could never love him, he had to be there for her as long as she needed his help. Charlie Prescott could threaten Hugh all he wanted, and it wouldn’t change his mind. He had to go back and help her. He wouldn’t allow her brother-in-law to take what was rightfully hers.
And he couldn’t wait for daylight to start back toward Sage-hen. Hugh tossed aside the blanket and reached for his boots.
It was midmorning on one of those Sundays in June when the air is fresh and the sky seems extra blue. Normally, such a day would draw words of praise to God from Julia’s lips as she sat by the river. But this morning, her heart felt numb. Too numb to read or write or sing or praise. Almost too numb to breathe. Too numb to keep on living. Not in the sort of way that made her want to throw herself into the river and drown. In the kind of way where a body could lay down and simply die for lack of a will to go on.
Such were her thoughts when Bandit alerted her to the approach of another. Her heart quickened a moment — was it Hugh? —before her hopes were dashed. The man on horseback wasn’t Hugh. It was Charlie. Tired as she was, she got to her feet. She wouldn’t allow him to tower over her more than necessary.
“Good morning, Julia.” He stopped his horse and leaned a forearm on the pommel.
She acknowledged him with a nod.
“I heard about the robbery. Folks are talking about it in town.”
“People shouldn’t gossip.”
“I wouldn’t call it gossip. The sheriff was seeking more deputies to look for Mr. Brennan. Naturally the word got out.” He shook his head. “I knew that fellow was no good.”
She hadn’t the strength to deal with her brother-in-law. She wanted him to leave. This was still her land, at least for another nineteen days. “Did you want something, Charlie?”
“Yes. I want to help you.”
Help her? He couldn’t help her with what mattered most — her broken heart.
“Let me buy your ranch now, before you lose it over unpaid taxes. You can leave Sage-hen with money in your pocket. Isn’t that better than being destitute?”
Even with her mind clouded by depression and her heart empty of hope, Julia knew Charlie would never offer such a thing for kindness’s sake. Perhaps he wanted to look beneficent to his neighbors or to other men in places of power. Perhaps he wasn’t willing to wait a few more months for the ranch to be auctioned off. Whatever his reasons, they didn’t matter to her. Not now. She had lost something of much more value than this ranch, than land or livestock.
“I’m not going to sell,” she said.
“Julia, be —”
“Please go away.” She turned her back toward him.
There was a lengthy stretch of silence, then, “Angus always said you were both stubborn
and
stupid. I see he was right. Have it your way.”
She waited until the sound of hoofbeats faded into nothing before she sank once more to the ground, surprised to find there were more tears left to be shed after all.
Hugh figured he was less than an hour outside of Pine Creek when he stopped to rest his horse. He sat on the ground in the shade of a tall tree to eat some beef jerky while the gelding grazed nearby. That’s where he was when three men on horseback found him.
One of them was the sheriff. A bad feeling washed over Hugh as he stood to meet them.
“Hugh Brennan?” the sheriff said, as if there might be some question about his identity even though they’d met before.
“Yes.”
Sheriff Noonan bumped his hat brim with his knuckles. “Didn’t expect to find you this close to town.”
The words had an ominous ring to them.
“We need you to come back to Pine Creek with us.”
Even more ominous. “What for?”
“Just need to ask you a few questions. About Mrs. Grace.”
“Julia?” He forgot his own misgivings. “What about her? What’s happened? Is she all right?”
“It’ll be better if we talk about it back at my office.”
Hugh went to his horse, took the reins in hand, and swung into the saddle. “Then let’s go.” He kicked the gelding in the ribs, and the horse shot forward.
The sheriff and his deputies were behind Hugh in an instant. Instinct told him that if he tried to get away, one of them would shoot him. But he had no intention of trying to get away. He had to know what happened to Julia — and getting to Pine Creek would put him that much closer to her.
Sheriff Noonan rode up beside him. “Slow down, Brennan. We aren’t going to a fire.”
Hugh recognized a command from a man of authority when he heard it. Years in prison had taught him that. He reined his horse back to a slow trot. Then he looked at the sheriff. “Has Mrs. Grace been hurt? Was there an accident at the ranch?”
“No. No accident. She’s not hurt.”
He felt some of the tension leave his shoulders. Whatever had sent these lawmen to find him, he could deal with it as long as he
knew Julia was unharmed. They rode the rest of the way to town in silence, Hugh beside Lance Noonan, the two deputies following close behind them.
Based upon the number of families walking on the boardwalk in their Sunday best, church services in Pine Creek were over by the time the four men got to town. Some of those families paused to stare at the horsemen as they rode by. Hugh had the feeling they knew something he didn’t. It wasn’t a good feeling.
In front of the jail, they dismounted and tied their mounts to the hitching post.
“Rogers,” the sheriff said, “take care of Mr. Brennan’s belongings.”
“Yessir.”
Hugh frowned.
“Come inside, Brennan.”
Something happened to Hugh as he followed Sheriff Noonan into his office. First, dread washed over him and the walls seemed to close in. It was like being in one of his nightmares and not unexpected. But before panic could take hold, he felt gripped by a sudden stillness instead. Peace. As if he’d been plucked from the heart of a storm and was now above the wind. Unlike the dread, the latter feeling was most unexpected. It had to be the Lord’s peace. There was no other explanation for it.
Hold fast
. As in the night, the words seemed audible, although they weren’t.
“Have a seat,” the sheriff said as he walked to the opposite side of his desk and sat in his own chair.
One of the two deputies, Rogers, came into the office. He looked at the sheriff and gave his head a shake.