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Her stomach roiled. What now?
She hadn’t thought much past their immediate escape. Judging by their dazed expressions, neither had the others. Darcy had abandoned her indifferent sneer and Hazel’s lower lip trembled. Tears brimmed in Hazel’s wide brown eyes. Even Tony had lost her swagger.
“It’s safe now,” Moira announced and flapped her hands dismissively. “I believe our kidnapper will be indisposed for an extended period of time. You may all go home.”
“I’m sorry I sneezed and gave away our hiding place.” Sarah wrapped her arms around her slight body. “I can’t go home.”
“Of course you can,” Moira urged. “Mr. Elder will walk you safely home, won’t he?”
She lifted a meaningful eyebrow in his direction. Let him wiggle out of that one.
Sarah shook her head. “We haven’t any place to go.”
Moira caught sight of the safety pin, the number long-since faded, attached to the girl’s pinafore. Nausea rose in the back of her throat. “You were on the orphan train?”
“I have an uncle.” Tony cut in, her expression defiant. “He gave me a letter and everything. He said he’d come for me.”
Darcy braced her legs apart and planted her hands on her hips. “Then where is he now? You can claim whatever you want, but you’re no better off than the rest of us.”
“The woman on the train took my letter.” Tony lifted her chin. “She stole it while I was asleep. So I ran away. Folks don’t want children. They want workers. We’re free labor, plain and simple.” Tony jabbed her thumb at her chest. “I’m worth more. I was doing fine on my own until I was caught.” Her face blanched. “Until that man. Until tonight when we were...you know. I got sloppy, but it won’t happen again.”
“Don’t worry.” Moira patted her hand. “It’s all over now.”
The hollow platitudes stuck in the back of her throat. They were children. Alone. They’d never be safe. Her head spun with the implications of the impossible situation. Life for discarded children was ruthless and devoid of fairy-tale endings. At best they’d be neglected, at worst they’d be exploited. Driven into impossible choices.
The air sizzled with emotion and the girls crowded around her, speaking over each other, demanding her attention. She backed away from the onslaught and they crowded her against the stall door.
“I have a sister,” Sarah announced with a nod. “She’s older than me. She said she’d take care of me, but her husband didn’t want me. They put me on the train anyway.”
Moira swayed on her feet. The past came rushing back. She pictured her mother standing on the platform, her ever-present handkerchief pressed against her mouth as she coughed. Moira had held her brother’s hand clasped in her own.
“I’ll take care of you, Tommy.”
She knew better than anyone did the perils of survival. She’d been tested herself. Tested, and failed.
“Miss O’Mara,” John Elder’s voice interrupted her memories. “What’s going on here? Aren’t you together?” He circled his arms and touched his fingertips together. “Aren’t you a gang of little pickpockets?”
Her body stiffened in shock. “You’d believe a drunken kidnapper over a bunch of innocent children?”
She hadn’t stolen anything in the four years since she’d left the Giffords’. Not even when she’d been near starving. He didn’t know anything about her. He was making a blind guess, that’s all.
A horse stuck its head from the stall door and nuzzled her ear. Moira absently scratched its muzzle.
Hazel tugged on her skirts. “What’s a pickpocket?”
Guilt skittered across the cowboy’s face. “I’m sorry,” he spoke. “I’m not certain what’s going on here. It’s not that I don’t have sympathy for your predicament, but I’ve got a herd of cattle.” He motioned over his shoulder. “I can’t leave them for much longer.”
Moira ran her hand through her sweat-dampened hair. What was she going to do? She couldn’t hide them all. “I’m renting a room at the hotel. It’s the size of a water closet.”
She was tired and hungry and bruised. The entire trip had been a waste of time and she was penniless. Stuck in this corrupt town unless she could find a respectable job. As much as she wanted to help, there wasn’t much she could do. She could barely take care of herself.
The four girls cowered before her like penned animals who’d escaped their enclosure. They were wide-eyed and curious, frightened and hesitant. And lost. That was the thing about growing up in a caged environment, a person could always feel around the edges and find where the ground dropped off. Even being homeless was as much of a cage as anything else. When the basic needs of food and shelter consumed every waking moment, survival was a jail all its own. No time for dreams or hopes or plans of the future. The moment they’d found one another, the rules had altered. They were a team.
Moira vividly recalled her first year alone after leaving the Giffords—the fear, the uncertainty, the uneasy exhilaration of holding her own fate in her hands, unencumbered by the push and pull of others. A similar feeling was blossoming in the girls.
Having stretched beyond their solitary struggles, they showed the first trembling signs of hope. They’d discovered kindred spirits, and they were holding on tight, lashing together their brittle fellowship like a flimsy raft against troubled waters. Moira hadn’t the heart to tell them they were better off alone. Sooner or later, everyone wound up alone.
Sarah hung her head. “No one picked me at the last stop,” she spoke quietly. “I couldn’t stand it anymore. It’s like at recess when nobody picks you for a team. When the chaperones came for us at the hotel, I hid. I did what I had to do. I know I’ve done things wrong and I’ve prayed for forgiveness. After you helped us, I felt like my prayers were answered.”
The room swayed and Moira’s vision clouded. She knew the feeling of being passed around like a secondhand coat nobody wanted anymore. Though she feared the answer, she asked anyway, “Where have you been staying since then?”
“We all just sort of found each other and stuck together. There’s an abandoned building near the edge of town.” Sarah ducked her head. “That’s where that man found us.”
Darcy’s expression remained defiant. “You all knew it couldn’t last. You knew they’d catch us sooner or later. I was on my own for four years without getting caught.” She noticed Moira’s curious glance and her countenance faltered. “I was on my own for four years,” she repeated.
Though Moira didn’t want to hear any more, didn’t want to know any more, she’d set her questions into motion and there was no going back.
She knelt before Hazel, the youngest. The little girl wore a faded blue calico dress, the grayed rickrack trim ripped and drooping below her hem. “Do you have a home?” Moira asked gently.
The littlest girl shook her head. “A family picked me, but I was bad and they took me back.” Hazel sniffled. “I left the chicken coop open by accident and the dog got in. All the chickens died. Mrs. Vicky didn’t want me any more after that. Then tonight I only wanted an apple... I would have worked for it. I would have.”
Sarah rested a hand on her shoulder. “You don’t have to say any more.”
Moira gritted her teeth. They were just children and they’d been discarded like so much rubbish. She was sick of it. Sick of people thinking children didn’t have thoughts or feelings. “How did you wind up in Indian Territory?”
“Because this is the end of the line,” Darcy said.
There wasn’t much between the Indian Territories and California. Moira supposed No Man’s Land was as good a place as any to dump the unwanted children.
Ten years ago she’d been a rider on the orphan train. She and her brother, Tommy. She hadn’t kept the promise she’d made to her mother. She hadn’t taken care of Tommy.
Sometimes she felt as though she was being punished for her failure. She hadn’t felt peace since that fateful day when she’d slipped Mr. Gifford’s watch into her pocket. She’d known it was wrong. She’d known it was stealing. She couldn’t help herself. She often wondered what kind of person she’d become. She wondered if there was any going back. If she’d slipped once, how much temptation did she need before she slipped again?
Mr. Gifford had blamed Tommy for the missing watch and she’d been too terrified to admit the truth. Mr. Gifford had promised retribution, but Tommy hadn’t waited around for the punishment. By the following morning, he was gone. And he hadn’t even said goodbye.
Once she found him, once she confessed what she’d done, this pain would end. She’d waited another year at the Giffords’ even though staying had been near torture. She’d waited hoping Tommy would return so she could explain the truth and finally take the blame. Except he’d never come back.
After she’d left the Giffords’, she’d remained in St. Louis, hoping against hope she’d glimpse him. It was crazy, but it was all she had. She’d kept in touch with anyone she thought she could trust, but most of the servants were too scared for their jobs to return the favor. Then she’d received the charred bits of the telegram from the maid with Tommy’s name. Her prayers had finally been answered.
The girls stared at her, their faces expectant. Moira knew better than anyone what fate awaited the orphan girls, but there was nothing she could do. The system was too far broken for one lone person to fix. She glanced at the cowboy. He looked away. Mr. Elder wanted a crew, not a bunch of waifs.
Moira shook her head in denial. They didn’t know her. They didn’t know how she’d failed Tommy. How she’d fail them if they put their faith in her. They’d turn on her for certain if they knew how she’d betrayed her own brother.
Shame robbed the breath from her lungs. “I’m sorry, but I can’t help you. Any of you.”
* * *
The defeat in Moira’s voice knocked John down a peg. For the past twenty minutes he’d been patting himself on the back, lauding his clever handling of the situation. While the rescue hadn’t been particularly elegant, he’d accomplished his goal. He’d saved the girls from the dubious justice of a drunken vigilante and disabled the man in the process. What had his false pride netted him? He hadn’t solved anything. He’d mined a heap of new problems instead.
One night, John told himself. He’d lost a whole day already, what was one more?
His brothers’ words rang in his ears. You’ll never make it without our help.
All his life they’d treated him as though he wasn’t capable. Every bit of clothing he’d had growing up had been a hand-me-down. If he had an idea, they had a thousand reasons why it wouldn’t work. If he wanted to try something new at the ranch, he had to ask permission like a child. At thirty-three years old, they still treated him as though he was a kid. Truth be told, he was the odd man out in his family. He’d always been more relaxed, more easygoing than the rest of his siblings.
His brothers attacked their responsibilities, no matter how minor, with all-consuming zeal and they expected him to do the same. John figured there were times when letting go was just as difficult as fighting. Yet he’d never once seen a monument erected in honor of a calculated retreat.
He and his brother Robert had fought the worst. Their last argument had divided the family, and John had realized it was time to set out on his own. If he stayed, one of them was bound to say something they couldn’t take back. The only way they were going to get along was if one of them backed down. He’d demanded his share of the herd and declared his intention to take over the homestead his older brother Jack had abandoned when he’d married.
You’ll never make it without our help.
Robert’s words rang in his ears. John pulled out his watch and checked the time. Eleven o’clock. Too late for anything but sleeping. He’d quit tomorrow, when things were less complicated.
Hazel tugged on his pant leg. “I’m tired. Can we come home with you?”
“I don’t have a home. Not here anyway.” Weary resignation softened his voice. When had his simple goal become this complicated? “I’m driving a herd of cattle to Cimarron Springs, Kansas.”
He felt another tug on his pant leg.
Hazel’s liquid brown eyes stared up at him. “Do you have any food at your camp?”
John’s throat tightened. His whole life he’d been surrounded by the suffocating pressure of family. But he’d never gone to bed hungry.
And he’d never been homeless. “When was the last time any of you ate?”
Hazel shrugged.
John studied each of the girls in turn, their personalities already forming in his mind. Sarah kept her face downcast, as though asking for help was an imposition. Tony met his questioning gaze straight on, challenging. Darcy remained hesitant, uncertain, caught between rebellion and desperation.
Moira’s eyes haunted him most of all. A curious shade of pale blue-green, the color of the tinted glass of a mason jar, translucent and ethereal. Hopeless. The foreign emotion resonated in his heart. You couldn’t mourn for something you’d never had. What had Moira hoped for, and lost? She hadn’t hoped for someone like him, that much was certain. She’d made her disdain of him apparent. Yet the desolate look in her eyes was hauntingly familiar. He’d seen that look once before.
Years ago, Robert had lost his wife during a bank robbery gone sour. He’d never forget the agony his brother had suffered. The pain of loss his niece and nephew had worn from that moment on. The death of their mother had bent them like saplings in the wind. They’d survived the tragedy, but they were irrevocably changed.
Robert had changed, too. He’d been married and widowed young. A man who’d grown old before his time beneath the weight of tragedy. Four years separated the brothers in age, though it might as well have been forty. He couldn’t bridge the chasm between them—because knowing why Robert had changed and getting along with him were different things. After their last fight over how to run the family ranch, John had known he could no longer stay without tearing the rest of the family apart.
He rubbed his forehead. He had enough food back at camp to feed four hungry crewmen. Certainly enough for a few scrawny females.
He was well and truly trapped by his own conscience.
One night, he repeated. What was the harm in sheltering the girls for one night? Yet the past two months had taken its toll on his endurance. Even the most basic problems had multiplied, popping up like wild mushrooms after a spring rain.
Impatient with his indecision, Hazel took his hand. “Why are you taking your cattle for a walk?”
“It’s not a walk,” John patiently explained. “It’s called a drive. I’m driving them to Cimarron Springs.”
“How come?”
“Because I was tired of trying to prove myself,” John grumbled beneath his breath.
Hazel’s innocent questions struck too close to the heart of the matter. He didn’t have any strength left to pretend he didn’t care. Feigned complacency took energy, and he was plum out of flippant answers. Everyone in a family had a role, and John’s role had been determined before he’d toddled off the porch and cut his chin. A scar he still bore. A preconceived legacy he couldn’t shake.
He was the one who dove in headfirst without heeding the dangers. He was the most impulsive of his family, the most easygoing, too, as far as he could tell. Which meant his brothers rarely took his ideas seriously. When he’d declared his intent to purchase his brother Jack’s plot of land in Cimarron Springs and drive his share of the herd north before Kansas closed its borders against longhorns, Robert had scoffed.
You’ll lose your shirt.
John hadn’t lost yet.
He did have an idea how to stop the girls’ incessant questions. “You can stay with me tonight.” A body couldn’t talk while eating. “I’m coming back to town tomorrow. We’ll find help during the day. There’s nothing else we can do this late.”
The relief on their faces disgraced him. “Can any of you ride?”
Tony and Darcy nodded.
Moira shrugged. “Some.”
He’d earlier judged Miss O’Mara’s age as early twenties. Old enough for courting and pretty enough for dozens of marriage proposals. John pictured the girls back home with their giggles and coy smiles. Moira could easily pass for one of those girls. She had a sweet face, pale and round, with a natural dusting of pink on her cheeks. Her lips were full and rose colored, perfect for kissing. But despite the natural innocence nature had bestowed on her face, her eyes held a jarring, world-weary cynicism.
John plucked the hat he’d lost during the fight from the ground and dusted the brim. He slanted a glance at the prone man who lay where Moira’s discarded pitchfork had rendered him senseless. Their pursuer would come to soon enough, and he’d be spitting mad.
They didn’t have much time. “I’ll take you back to my camp. We’ll figure out the rest in the morning.”
Moira moved protectively before the girls. “Is there anyone at camp besides you?”
“Yes,” John answered truthfully.
She pursed her full lips and he glanced away from the distraction.
Moira tsked. “Then the answer is no. I’ll take care of the girls myself.”
The return of her elusive temper buoyed his spirits. That was more like it. “I’ve got a cook. His name is Pops and I’m pretty sure he’s as old as dirt. And ornery. But he makes good grub.” John laughed drily. “Too bad you weren’t a bunch of boys. I’d hire you on as my new crew and save myself another trip into town.”
His joke fell on deaf ears. A myriad of emotions flitted across Moira’s expressive face. Doubt, hope, fear. She wanted to trust him, she didn’t have much other choice, but he sensed her lack of faith. Not for the first time he wondered about Miss O’Mara’s background. What was her story? She was at once an innocent girl and a jaded woman, and he couldn’t help but wonder what forces had shaped her.
“I’ve got five horses I need delivered back to camp,” John continued. “You’d be helping me out.”
Hazel appeared crestfallen. “If I can’t ride, does that mean I can’t go?”
His heart heavy, John knelt before the little girl. “Of course you can go. You can ride with me.”
He marveled at their expressive personalities. Darcy was petulant and defiant—he’d keep an eye on that one. Sarah was meek, with a thread of steel behind her shy demeanor. Tony pressed her independence, but she wasn’t as brave as she appeared. Nothing prevented Tony from leaving. She’d stayed instead. And Hazel. What kind of heartless person discarded a little girl because of a simple mistake?
John faced Moira, the unspoken leader. Her eyes drooped at the corners and he realized she’d reached the end of her rope.
He knew that feeling well enough. “Trust me.”
Her eyes sparked with emotion. “For tonight,” she replied, her voice a telling mixture of exhaustion and determination. “Just for tonight.”
The kidnapper stirred and groaned. John crossed the distance and looped his arms beneath the prone man’s shoulders. Heels dragging tracks through the dirt floor, he dragged the dead weight into an empty stall. A glint of silver on the man’s coat caught his attention. John flipped the lapel aside and groaned. The silver star knocked the wind from his lungs. The words stamped into the metal flickered in the lamplight: Deputy Sheriff.
