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Only that strategy had blown up in his face, for today she’d been stronger than he knew. Far stronger, and that truth was mighty hard to swallow. As a matter of fact, the shock of her strength had turned him stupid. If anyone saved the day here it was you? What kind of fool remark was that? He’d lost his control. Only for a moment, but land sakes that was enough, wasn’t it?
The way he’d figured her, Miss Sanders should be as undone as the pretty blonde crying on the rocks over there. And he had seen tears come up behind her eyes—despite doing his best to ignore them. So how was it she was trotting across the clearing with her hands on her hips, all teacher in command? Where’d a woman so quiet and tiny get such a core of steel?
His eyebrow shot up as Miss Sanders began to clap softly as she walked toward the children. She stopped about six yards out, speaking just soft enough to be heard. “Clap once if you can hear me.”
He thought the tactic crazy until one little girl’s eyes widened and looked up. Miss Sanders repeated herself, still clapping. “That’s right, clap once if you can hear me.” Startled out of her crying fit, the little girl clapped. A second girl next to her also looked up, sniffled, and clapped. Mason scratched his head, amazed.
“There you go. Now come over here and clap twice if you can hear me.” By now all three of the little girls were clapping and moving toward Holly. Even a few of the adults looked up from tending to Miss Sterling, their attention drawn by the change in the children.
“Clap three times if you can hear me,” Holly went on, garnering the attention of the two youngest boys. “Now four.” Miss Sanders’s voice steadied with every call, so that now she sounded as if this had been an ordinary school day. “Now five.” The whole clearing was looking at her as the children quietly gathered around her and she kneeled down to their level. Mason realized his mouth was open, and shut it promptly, his own hands on his hips. He’d never seen anything so oddly effective in all his days.
“It’s time to be calm and quiet. We’re safe, and things will be all right from here. Everyone have all their fingers and toes?” The voice was sensible and cheerful, as if it didn’t belong to the same woman who’d just stood over Arlington’s body. The smallest girl—a tot of four or five from the looks of it—actually bent down to inspect her shoes, no doubt wiggling her toes inside.
“Da,” the little girl said, dark braids bobbing. One of the older boys laughed, and a sliver of tension left the small sets of shoulders. Mason shook his head, befuddled.
“We’re going to walk over here,” Miss Sanders instructed, pointing to a spot that would shield the children from both Miss Sterling and the shrouded body of Mr. Arlington. “We’ll sit down by age. Can you do that for me?” She pointed to the second largest boy, placing him in charge of the task. “And you,” she said, pointing to the largest, “will go into the railcar and get everyone’s bags so we can make sure everyone has what they need. My town is just over that hill and you’ll all get to visit tonight. You’ll get some supper, too. But we’ve lots to do to make that happen so I’ll need everyone’s help.”
As Mason stood watching this small woman accomplish this very large feat, the train conductor came up with an equally stunned look on his face.
“Who is that?” he asked Mason as both men stared.
“That,” Mason said, not bothering to hide the respect in his voice, “is Holly Sanders.”
Chapter Three
Holly had walked the four miles from the railroad track to town hundreds of times, but none so tiresome as the trek felt today. As the slanted afternoon sun spread heat across the scrubby spring landscape, home and safety felt far away. She couldn’t tell if she was too shaken to feel the long walk, or too numb to feel anything but her feet inside her tight, pinching boots.
The many small feet making the journey beside her surely lengthened the miles. Some of the children wore their trauma outright, crying and clutching to Miss Sterling and herself. Others, like Liam, were so silent Holly couldn’t help but worry. Bucky and the other townsmen had taken the wounded bandits back to the Evans Grove jail while Mason laid Mr. Arlington’s body over his own horse after seeing the train back on its route. None of that changed the awful truth that no child should have to witness men gunned down.
Certainly not orphans. Why add this to the burden of their lives, Lord? Holly understood the charitable sentiment of the Orphan Salvation Society. Better lives awaited these children out here than the parentless squalor they knew in eastern cities. Still, to be hauled out of the place one knew, plunked onto a train and displayed before prospective families in town after town for placement—how could that be anything but traumatic? Even if many of them found spots in loving homes, her heart ached for the grueling process, the rejection of being “passed over.” Some of them were so heartbreakingly small and the train had made so many stops already.
“I’m glad you’re staying,” Holly offered to Miss Sterling. The woman had said next to nothing as she carried Galina, one of the smaller orphan girls, against her hip while holding the hand of a shy girl named Heidi. Miss Sterling had introduced each of the children on the train, and Holly was struggling against her fatigue to remember all their names. The three other boys—Tom, Patrick and some other German-sounding name she couldn’t recall at the moment—had been boisterous and quiet by turns, unsure how to handle the experience. Who could blame them? Holly herself was anxious one minute, exhausted the next. Heidi, the very quiet girl who had sat next to Miss Sterling on the train, hadn’t said a word since the shooting. Even though she mostly hid in the agent’s skirts, Holly had spied gruesome scars on the girl’s face. How cruel for a girl to have known so much pain so young. “I think the children couldn’t go on, and, Miss Sterling, nor should you.”
“Please call me Rebecca. We’ll have to stay. I’ll need to make...arrangements.” Her voice caught on the word. “I’ve no idea how to proceed under the circumstances. I’ve...” Her voice fell off in a wobbly sigh.
“Call me Holly. Try not to think about that. I’ll help you send some wires when we get into town. We’ll sort it all out in the morning.”
“You were awful brave, ma’am,” Liam offered to Rebecca. “You, too, Miss Sanders.” It was the first time Liam had spoken of his own accord, only piping up to answer questions before this.
His attempt at morale boosting warmed Holly’s heart. “As were you. I’d have been afraid to sneak off to where those robbers hid their horses, but Sheriff Wright says you were a right clever deputy today.”
“Me, a deputy.” The thought brought the first smile to Liam’s face since the incident.
“How long ’til that man gets here?” whined young Lizzie in Holly’s arms, fussing with her shirt collar.
Tom, a thin, sickly-looking lad, coughed and wiped his forehead. “Why didn’t we get to ride the horses? Those robbers should’a been the ones that had to walk!”
“Sheriff Wright will be back with the wagons soon,” Holly replied. “The robbers can’t walk because we hurt them.”
“Bobbins isn’t hurt, but I am,” Lizzie offered, nodding toward the raggedy bunny doll in one hand while holding up her other hand to Holly. “I gots an ow right here.”
Holly dutifully offered a medicinal kiss to the pudgy pink thumb. “Which is exactly why I’m carrying both of you.” She caught Rebecca’s tight, drawn face out of the corner of her eye. All of us hurt today.
Liam stepped up to walk beside Heidi, taking her hand from Rebecca’s. He pointed toward town with his other hand. “One wagon will go back to the train and get our things. And the banker, and the safe, too. The other wagon’s comin’ to fetch us. We won’t have to walk much farther. I been there and back already, remember?”
As if on cue, two wagons pulled into view half a minute later. Ned Minor was driving the wagon from Gavin’s General Store while Mason Wright brought up one with crates lined up as seats along either side.
“If you’re the sheriff, why aren’t you with the robbers?” the boy named Patrick called as Ned’s wagon went on by toward the rail line, and Sheriff Wright pulled up to the weary band of travelers.
“Doc Simpson’s tending to their wounds while Bucky keeps watch. Besides, with wounds in their legs and their arms tied up, they’re not much trouble to anyone at the moment. I’m more worried about your lot than those sorry souls, anyhow.” He climbed down off the driver’s bench and motioned toward the wagon’s payload. “Nothing fancy, but it sure beats walking the rest of the way into town.”
“By a mile,” Tom wheezed, climbing in. He called out to Miss Sterling. “Here, ma’am, this corner seat oughta be for you.”
Holly frowned. “Surely Miss Sterling ought to sit up front.”
“In truth,” sighed Rebecca, “I think back here with all the children would be best.” As Sheriff Wright helped Rebecca into the wagon bed, Holly found she couldn’t argue the request, even knowing the ride was far bumpier in back. Having been through what they all witnessed, wouldn’t she want to surround herself with the hugs of children? As she handed little Lizzie and Bobbins up into the wagon, Holly’s thoughts cast back to so many of her own students. Fright made one crave the familiar.
Cargo in place, the sheriff swung into the driver’s seat and extended a hand to help Holly step up beside him. “My.” Her own sigh was almost as large as Rebecca’s. “What a blessing it is to be able to sit down and ride. I feel as if these boots have grown teeth.”
Sheriff Wright picked up the reins and gave them a snap. As the cart lurched into motion, he glanced down at Holly’s feet. “Fancy footwear there.”
Fancy? By Evans Grove standards, perhaps, but not compared to what she’d seen in Newfield. “I had hoped to make a fine impression on the bank.” She had, until she’d seen how her homespun look measured up to all those frocked ladies and brocade waistcoated bankers. Holly felt the top of her head, unsurprised to find her best hat gone. “I wasn’t planning on braving a gunfight in my Sunday best.” Holly’s “Sunday best” compared poorly to Rebecca’s finely cut traveling clothes. Why, even the children seemed in better clothes than she—though she knew that orphans on such trains were deliberately well-dressed in order to impress prospective families. Holly was neat and tidy, but certainly no sight to catch any eye.
Surely not Mason Wright’s eye, although a surprising smile did cross his serious face. “You did right fine, considering.” The smile quickly evaporated. “Although I’m never one for changing plans at the last minute like that. Too much risk.”
She’d wondered how long it would take his initial concern for her safety to yield to his annoyance that she’d been allowed to go at all. “And just how do you suppose I could refuse Mr. Brooks’s offer to get the funds so quickly? I did wire back word this morning. As I see it, arranging a stop in Evans Grove seemed far safer than going all the way to Greenville and taking the stage back.”
He gave her what Holly had come to call his “book look.” “That’s all fine,” he nearly muttered, “...in theory.” Truly, the only time Mason Wright ever seemed to give her any attention was to exercise his obvious opinion that “book learning” didn’t do one a whole heap of good in the real world. “Only that wire never came and I was saddling up to ride off toward Greenville.” Some days it felt like he viewed her as a dull, dry textbook best ignored. “Five more minutes and I’d have been gone when Liam came into town.” His brows furrowed. “I’d have been miles out of town with no way to help you all if...”
Today of all days she wasn’t going to let him get away with it. “If,” she finished for him, “I hadn’t found a clever way to send Liam off for help.” She stared at him until he lifted his gaze from the reins and returned her stare. “You did say I saved the day, did you not?”
That was a fool thing to say, for a look of regret washed across his features. She should have known he didn’t really mean it. “Perhaps I ought to deputize you.”
It was the first time he’d ever paid enough attention to her to tease her, and she felt that unwelcome girlish fluster return. “Don’t talk such nonsense.” Still, a tiny new spark of confidence refused to be extinguished. She had been brave, even though she felt more fear than she could ever remember. She’d made a difference today, hadn’t she? A real difference. “I prayed as hard as I ever have and, well, I had some very clever help.”
He tipped his hat. “Nice to be appreciated.”
“And what if I was talking about Liam?” She’d teased him right back. She’d never done that, never even had enough of a conversation to have the chance. All these clever words didn’t change the fact that she knew—deep down knew—Sheriff Wright had walked into the line of fire for her life. There were a million serious words to be said about that, but she could find none of them in this moment. Still, she couldn’t leave it at a joke, a levity over something so solemn as a life—lives—saved. Finding that same pool of courage that had shown itself on the train, Holly extended her hand to touch the sheriff’s arm for the briefest of moments. With all the solemnity she could muster, she said, “Thank you.”
They’d never touched before today. Not even to shake hands. Today, when he’d grabbed her at the railroad clearing and hauled her away from Mr. Arlington’s dying body, she’d felt his grasp for the first time. She’d noticed how he steered clear of her at church picnics and town meetings and such. He spoke to her only when necessary or when she sought him out. He’d never paid her much mind.
And she just touched him. Every sensible bone in her body told her to regret it, but she found she couldn’t.
To her delight—or her horror, she truthfully couldn’t say which—Sheriff Wright held her eyes for a long moment before guiding the horse around a turn. “I was doing my job.” He’d closed up the moment so neatly and completely, Holly wasn’t even sure it had happened at all.
But today has happened, her frayed spirit wanted to yell. We can’t go back from it. “Mr. Arlington was just doing his job, and now he’s...gone.” The memory of his blood seeping into the ground produced a shiver. We can’t go back.
“Best not to dwell on that.” He cocked his head toward the back of the wagon. “Not with all those little ones about.” After a short pause, he asked, “I think it was smart not to send them on, but have you got any ideas how we’re going to manage it?”
She did. The plan fell solid into her head as if God had sent it by telegraph. “I asked Ned to get Miss Ward to round up the ladies’ society and see to supper. When I get in, I can ask Reverend Turner to meet with them while they eat. He’ll know how to ease their minds and such. While he does that, Charlotte Miller and I can make up pallets so we can sleep them all in the schoolhouse. I’d let Miss Sterling have my bed in the house next door and offer to sleep with the children, but I don’t think she’d accept.” Holly cast a glance back to see Rebecca’s cheek resting on the head of a little girl. “I imagine it’s hit her hardest of all, poor soul.”
“And you?”
She was startled he asked. Such surprise did little to dismiss the black knot of fear that hadn’t left her stomach since her first glimpse of the bandit’s eyes. Like peering right into evil, it was. “I’ll be fine.”
Sheriff Wright shook his head. “Your hands are still shaking.” Holly tucked her hands into the folds of her skirt. “See to yourself is all I’m saying.” His voice sounded uncomfortable with the words, as though letting them out by force rather than concern. He straightened his hat and shifted in his seat. “You’ve been through just as much as they have. Sleeping with a gaggle of fussy youngsters doesn’t sound too sensible to me.”
Sensible? There were days when Holly felt like hearing that word once more would drown her in dullness. Nothing about today—nothing about how she currently felt, or who was in the back of this wagon, or what body would be lying in the back of Doc Simpson’s office—felt sensible.
And as for sleep, Holly didn’t think sleep would visit her tonight. Not when the clamoring silence of Mr. Arlington’s lifeless body echoed every time she closed her eyes.
* * *
When the wagon pulled up on Second Street and the church steeple came into view, Mason finally let down his guard. He’d barely been able to speak after she’d said “Thank you” with all that frailty in her eyes, and the spot where she touched him fairly burned from the memory. The impulse to grab her up and pull her from harm’s way had been a primal reaction, one his body hadn’t yet released. Holly Sanders always made him jittery ten ways ’til Sunday, and today hadn’t helped.
“Oh, thank You, Jesus!” Her sigh echoed far too close to his shoulder. “I don’t know when I’ve ever been so glad to be home.” Mason was sure he could hear her big blue eyes flutter.
There were good reasons he sat far away from those eyes during church services—on the rare occasions he even darkened the church door. It wasn’t disinterest that kept Mason away from Holly Sanders’s endless classroom projects. He resisted the pull of that woman with every protective bone in his body, knowing her book-and-fairy-tale world had no room for someone with the dark tale his life told. He wasn’t blind to her admiration—he’d caught too many of her stares not to see she fancied him—but that was only because Holly Sanders didn’t know the full story. If he told her, it’d put an end to her admiration, surely. Only, some part of him liked that regard as much as the other part of him resisted it. Seeing her in danger today had jumbled up his insides too much to think clearly. “I’m glad to have everyone safe back in town,” he admitted, meaning far more than the words conveyed on their polite surface.
Evans Grove was a small town, laid out in a tidy little grid around the town square they were just passing. As the wagon rumbled past Victory Street where the church was, he saw Miss Sanders’s nose wrinkle up in thought. “Speaking of safe,” she asked, “what will you do with the safe? Doesn’t it belong to the railroad?”
“I’ve been thinking on that.” He had. That safe contained more gold than Evans Grove had seen in a good long while, and while he knew from Curtis Brooks that there weren’t other railroad passengers’ funds or valuables in there, others did not. “It’s not the kind of thing we can leave unprotected. As for the rail line, I filed a report with the conductor, but with that kind of damage, I doubt they’ll want it back. It’ll spend the night with me in the sheriff’s office and then we’ll get Charlie Miller to open it in the morning.” Mason felt sure the village smithy—husband of the same Charlotte Miss Sanders just spoke of recruiting to help with the children—would be able to work that damaged door off its hinges.
“And then what?”
He allowed himself the luxury of watching her face’s peculiar vitality when working out a problem. All scrunched up and amusing, it was. It must be what made her the type to be a good teacher. Not him. Mason would rather deal with bandits than herd youngsters any day. The whining from the back of the wagon this afternoon had just about done him in, even though it didn’t seem to faze her one bit.
“The ‘then what’ is best kept between just a few, if you don’t mind.” He did not care to venture into a detailed discussion about anything with her, and keeping that gold hidden and secure was his top priority. Far too much depended on it.
“I’m sure you and Mr. Brooks will work something out.” She turned, looking behind her down the street for the other wagon.
“They’ll be another hour, I expect.”
“Are you sure they’re safe?”
He’d already gone over the tactic twice with Curtis Brooks. “I wouldn’t be here if they weren’t. You just worry about—”
“Look at that!” came a small voice from behind them on the wagon as they drove past Gavin’s General Store, which happened to have an unfortunate display of hard candies out in the window. “I’m hungry!”
“Me, too,” came another, followed by two more. Mason’s own stomach grumbled in sympathy.
“Goodness.” Miss Sanders’s hand went to her stomach. “I don’t think I’ve eaten since breakfast. I do hope Beatrice got to the ladies’ society.”
“You know Beatrice,” Mason chuckled. “She gets to everybody.”
As the town square came into view, Mason pointed to the collection of tables now set in the grove of Hackberry trees that gave the town its name. A gaggle of women chattered and scurried around Beatrice Ward, dashing here and there under the spinster’s barked commands. Flowers, tablecloths and other frills made the last-minute meal seem as if it had been planned for weeks.
“What a welcome for those tired folk!” Miss Sanders placed her hands on her chest. “God bless Beatrice Ward and the ladies’ society.”
Now there’s a thought I’d never have, Mason pondered as he pulled the wagon onto Liberty Street and headed for the town hall.
It was a matter of minutes before the wagon was surrounded by the good people of Evans Grove, and Miss Ward was giving a long, too-formal welcome speech. Impromptu as it was, the cobbled-together spread and Miss Ward’s grandiose gestures could make a person think they had stumbled into the annual town picnic. Had Miss Sterling taken note of the many buildings that were still in bad shape? Would Mr. Brooks realize how many lives had been washed away a month ago? Hope was wearing mighty thin in Evans Grove, but at least it was still alive.
“Come, Rebecca, sit down and have a glass of water. I’ll tend to the children.” Mason watched Holly Sanders guide Miss Sterling to a seat. How did the teacher manage such a cheerful and upbeat tone like that? He felt as if he’d lived a month in the last five hours. She must feel as bad, if not worse. He got his answer when he saw her put her hand to her forehead and straighten up far too slowly from helping that tiniest of girls. He wasn’t the only one hiding wounds today in Evans Grove.
Mason told himself to look away, but when her gaze met his, he found he could not. A shadow crossed her pale blue eyes; he could see it even from this distance across the shady clearing. His mind pulled up the unwelcome memory of the desperate grip she’d given him over Mr. Arlington’s dead body. He recalled the hesitant touch she’d given him in the wagon. The day had done something to her, to be sure. Taken something from her, although he couldn’t say what just yet.
Then again he wasn’t sure just what the day had stripped from him, either. He only knew something under his ribs was out of place, and it wasn’t the sort of thing Doc Simpson could put right.
He needed to get out of here, away from the jumble her eyes made of his thoughts. He forced her touch out of his mind, tamping it down the way he tamped down all those sorts of things anymore. He had a foursome of criminals, a broken safe full of gold and a body to tend to. He had no time for picnics. Ignoring the look Beatrice Ward gave him when he snatched a pair of rolls from the buffet table, Mason turned back toward the wagon and the duties still awaiting him.
Life wasn’t going to allow him such an easy out, for Holly Sanders caught up with him just as he was about to swing up into the seat. “You should eat.” Her tone of voice was...what? Complicated was the only word that came to mind—half request, half scolding, and weighted with the combined gains and losses of the day.
He held up the pair of rolls as his answer, unsure of what words to use given the set of her eyes.
“More than that.” Her hands parked on her hips while her voice wove a combination of lecture and teasing. Did she realize what that half-playful tone did to him, or was that just a cruel trick of circumstance?
“Too much yet to do.” He shrugged. “I’ve got...things...to attend to that can’t wait for supper.” He saw her shoulders sag and knew he hadn’t hidden the weight of his tasks behind an innocent word like “things.” She’d tried to re-pin her hair during the ride, but wayward strands of her chestnut-colored locks still eluded that tight bun she always wore. The lace on one of her sleeves had torn, and he realized the brown smear on the hem of her pretty skirt was blood.
It bothered him that her gaze followed his, that she knew what his eyes registered. She worried her hands together, delicate fingers rubbing each other as if it would erase the taint of the day. “Where is...he?” He knew she was speaking of Arlington’s body, but her eyes looked up from her skirt to fix on Liam. The boy sat quietly on a bench running his fingers around the rim of a glass of lemonade. All the children were a heartbreaking mix of fidgety, tired and afraid.
“He’s at Doc Simpson’s, I suppose. He’s got no kin here to lay him out.”
Her sigh pressed against the hollow spot opening in his chest. “He has a wife...had a wife. And a daughter, according to Miss Sterling. We should wire—”
“No point until the morning, really. It’s kinder that way, anyhow.” Mason tried not to think of the story she should never know, the story of his own worst night. He’d barely survived the endless, excruciating hours after coming home to the body of his wife. To the loss of the child who in two months’ time would have come into the world as his firstborn. No, he thought, bad news is best saved for daylight.
She straightened her shoulders—almost by sheer will this time, not hiding her wince. It was the worst kind of torture that she’d shown a new side of herself to him today. He hadn’t counted on Holly Sanders’s gumption, thinking she had smarts enough but no strength. Her bravery at the rail line had shown that a lie. A man with his history could recognize a glossed-over wound a mile off. “Miss Sanders, you all right?” The words tumbled out of him, odd and over-fussy.
“Why yes, of course I am,” she replied too quickly, her voice pitched too high for calm.
“Surely that can’t have been the first time you’ve seen a man dead?” It was a fool thing to ask. Evans Grove had lost so many in the flood, nearly everyone had kin or friends now gone, and this was the last kind of conversation he should be having with Holly Sanders.
“No.” She looked him in the eye, her expression fierce and kind and hurt all at once with a dozen other things besides. “But it is the first time a man’s been killed right in front of me.” Her hands fisted against that pretty skirt. “And I hate the way it feels. When I think of what it must feel like for Rebecca or any of those sweet children, I...” She bit off the end of her thought, jaw working to hold her composure steady. “I’d better go tend to the beds. We’d best get those exhausted children washed and trundled off right after supper.”
How well Mason knew that impulse, that “stay busy or it’ll swamp up over me” drive. It had been his constant companion in the months after Phoebe’s death. Phoebe’s murder.
“You should eat.” Without thinking, he offered one of his rolls with her own earlier command. It was a pointless gesture—the woman was perfectly capable of fixing herself a plate—but he found himself unwilling to go so far as to voice the “take care of yourself, too” he was thinking.
The message got through, anyway, for she managed to open her hand and take the roll. With a half a smile, she took a reluctantly obedient bite, straightened her shoulders one last time, and turned toward the schoolhouse.
Mason was still pondering the image of that half smile when he fell asleep at his desk in the sheriff’s office three hours later.
Chapter Four
It took longer than Holly guessed for her and Charlotte Miller to get things in order. The simple task of gathering up bedding and getting the nine pallets laid out on the schoolroom floor felt endless. Still, she reminded herself all of Evans Grove was pitching in to help. Pauline Evans and Beatrice Ward had consented to partner up to get Mr. Brooks settled at the Creekside Hotel, although Holly wasn’t sure Mr. Brooks would survive that team. His importance surely ensured a warm welcome and attentive hosting, but none of that would change the wounds of the day. Even friendly, attentive strangers were still strangers.
“Goodness, I think that’s the last of them,” said Charlotte as she folded the facecloth of the last washed child. “Why don’t you take Miss Sterling across the yard to your house to wash up,” Charlotte suggested, making Holly think she and Rebecca now looked as bedraggled as she felt. “I’ll mind the little ones until you get back.” A few years older than Holly but with just as much energy, Charlotte rubbed her neck but smiled at the row of clean faces peeking out from under blankets and afghans. “The ones who aren’t asleep already won’t stay awake for long.”
