Circle of Spies (54 page)

Slade swallowed and tried flexing his fingers. How was it possible that he was alive? The pain searing his chest proved the bullet had struck, and he remembered falling into nothingness. And then…what?

“Yetta.” Her hair, he saw her hair spilling from the freight car's door. Did she fall? Was she here somewhere too?
Oh God, let her be alive. Please, please let her be alive.

“Who?” Rose squinted at him, head tilted. “Judah? He's right here, though you don't wanna talk to him. He gets cranky when he stays up past his bedtime. Not me, though. Aunt Abigail says if she let me, I'd be up until the rooster crowed. I tried it once, but—”

“Rose,
stop
.” Judah put a hand to the top of her head and pushed her out of Slade's line of sight. “Sorry about her, mister. Are you all right? Do you need a drink or something? Do you have a name?”

“Don't be dumb, Judah. Everyone has a name. Is it in here?” Rose
must have jumped onto the bed beside him—the mattress bounced, and the pain doubled with his vision. His breath hissed out. She fluttered the pages of something.

“Rose, be careful! And what did Aunt Abigail say about nosing through his things?”

“It's just a book. Golly, it looks old. Are you Ob…Oba…Obadiah Reeves?”

The name swam in his head with the rest of them, but it settled into place when the room stopped spinning. She had the prayer book, that was all. She was looking at the last page, where the family names had been written, the ink getting rustier as one followed the list upward. He had found them only a month ago but had read them so many times since that he knew each flourish of the various hands.

Obadiah Reeves. Hezekiah Reeves. Winter Reeves. Thaddeus Lane.

“Slade.” He moistened his lips. “I'm Slade.”

Her face scrunched up. “You're not in here.”

No. He hadn't ever meant to leave his mark on that family.

She held up the book and peered through…a hole? “What's this for?”

“Rose.” Judah's voice again, longsuffering. “The bullet got it. Didn't you hear Doc say that? You never pay any attention.”

What? “No!” Slade lifted a hand before he thought better of it, wincing at the new surge of agony as well as the damage to the tome.

Judah put a restraining hand on the foolish arm. “I wouldn't get too upset about the book if I were you, mister. Doc said it coulda been what kept you from dying then and there. Coulda slowed the bullet down just enough, he said, before it went into you.” The boy shrugged. “Didn't seem to do much good to me. You about gave up the ghost on our kitchen table, but maybe I was wrong.”

“Besides, it's just the corner. You can still see all the words. Mostly.”

Floorboards creaked, and footsteps sounded somewhere nearby. Judah and Rose both snapped to attention and called out “Ruby!”

“How is he?” An older voice, but still young. Slade eased his face toward the door and frowned. Something about the blue dress, the black hair were familiar, though he wasn't sure why. Her eyes went just as wide as Judah's had. “You're awake!”

Another of the Kent siblings, it would seem. Older, more woman
than girl. She charged in and pushed her brother aside, gripped his hand, and leaned over him. “Can you speak? You scared a decade off of my life when I saw you falling from the train. Was it really Devereaux Hughes who shot you?”

He had to blink to keep his head from swimming again. These kids sure didn't know the value of quiet.

“I am sorry, sir.” Another woman's voice, older, drifted into the room. “Her train must have made it through before the tree came down. I have seen no young woman with red hair today.”

“It would have been an unscheduled train.” That voice—masculine, familiar, and asking after a young woman with red hair. But it couldn't be Lane. Lane was in Washington, saving Lincoln. He couldn't be here.

He dug his fingers into the mattress under him. Of course he was here, doing the same thing Slade had been doing—trying to save their Marietta from that monster.

Footsteps halted outside his room. “Interesting. An unscheduled train came through just before the lightning strike. I cannot speak to your granddaughter, but a man was shot and fell from one of the cars into the river. We brought him here, though the doctor thinks he cannot hold on much longer. Perhaps you would know him too?”

Ruby leaped from his side. “Aunt Abigail, he's awake!”

A clamor of footsteps followed, and a moment later a trio rushed through the door. A woman whose face seemed as familiar as Ruby's—Abigail, apparently—and two tall men partially visible behind her. Lane, it had to be. No one else was that tall. Sweet relief sang through him at knowing someone was here to help where he couldn't.

“Lane.” He tried to sit up and ended up back on the pillow, moaning.

“Oz.” The old man was at his side in one step. He shook his head as he took the chair beside the bed. “I knew, even as I prayed, something had gone wrong. What happened, son?”

Isaac came up behind him, looking conflicted.

Slade focused on the grandfather. “I don't know where she is. We were together in the freight car, but Hughes…” His eyes slid closed. Such a blur. He could remember her face, the love and the fear in it, her hand shaking and straining against Hughes's as they raised the gun. “I tried to give her a chance. I tried. I…” He couldn't breathe. It hurt too much, within and without.

She had to be all right. She
had
to be.

“We'll find her.” Lane gripped his forearm. Firmly, but there was a quaver in his hand, and his smile lacked its usual confidence. “I daresay when we do, she will settle for nothing less than your full recovery.”

He didn't know what to say to that. He didn't know that he could have said anything even if the perfect words rested on his tongue. Lane's face went blurry, Isaac's behind him contorted.

The black approached again.

Did she hear voices behind her or just the night giving chase? Was that a light up ahead, through the budding trees, or a star breaking through the clouds? Not knowing, Marietta could only ignore the cramping in her side and run onward, faster, narrowly dodging trees, slapping at stray limbs, stubbing her toes countless times on roots.

Yes, it was a light, set on the next hillside—half a dozen windows shining out hope, and even lanterns twinkling their way toward it. The inn, it had to be. And it was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.

A
crack
split the air, and the pound of thunder shook her. She looked first to the heavens, but the clouds were still thinning.

The thunder increased.
Hooves
.

Another
crack
, and this time bark flew off a tree a few paces to her left. “Mari! You might as well give up!”

Dev
. Not looking behind her, she prayed God would lift her and set her feet toward the light.

She had to get there. Had to find help. Had to keep her promise to Slade.

She had to live.

A gunshot echoed. A scream rent the air. High, desperate, it struck Slade right in his wound and brought him bolt upright, agony be hanged. “Yetta!”

Lane and Arnaud were already out the door, Judah and Ruby and Abigail behind them. Slade tossed aside the blanket and swung his legs to the floor. He had no shoes, no socks, and the trousers he wore were unfamiliar. Blood stained the bandage wrapped round his torso…a stain that grew as he watched.

Little fingers wove through his. “Mr. Slade, you better lay back down. You're bleeding again, and I don't want you to die.”

He dug up a smile for the girl. “I can't lie back down, Rose. My Yetta's out there, and I can't let a bad man hurt her.”

Her big eyes solemn, she nodded. “I better help you then. You can lean on me. I'm real strong.”

He didn't have time to argue. Marietta's scream tore through the room again, masculine shouts following. He tried to tell himself Lane was there, her brother was there. They would save her.

Not good enough. He accepted the little one's support and staggered up, lurched toward the door, and let her lead him down the hall. Every step felt heavier, and he had to pause halfway along and lean into a doorway.

He was glad he did when he spotted the rifle propped against the wall. Sucking in a deep breath, he reached for it and checked the chamber—loaded. “God of my end,” he murmured as he stumbled back into the hall, his vision narrowed upon the door swinging wide in the breeze, “it is my greatest, noblest pleasure to be acquainted with Thee.”

Perhaps it was just the wind whistling through the opening—or perhaps it was the touch of the Father, lending him a breath of borrowed life. He released Rose and told her to stay out of sight inside, and then he slid onto the porch and leaned against a post.

He stared at the pure horror in the yard.

A lathered horse quivered, reins dragging the mud. Lane and Arnaud both stood with their backs to him, guns drawn. Abigail had Judah and Ruby clutched to her chest, terror frozen in her eyes. And there, facing him, barely in the circle of light, stood Hughes. He held
a thrashing, gnashing Marietta before him as a shield, Slade's revolver pressed to her temple.

The pain in his chest nearly crippled him, but not where the bullet had bit. Somewhere deeper, far deeper. His Yetta—his beautiful, vibrant Yetta, fighting for her life.

“If you hurt her, you'll be dead in a second. Let her go.” Lane's voice sounded hard, daring. “Let her go or I will shoot you in the head here and now.”

Hughes sneered. “If your aim were that good, old man, you already would have taken the shot. How about you two put down your guns instead and we back away. I swear if either of you twitches a finger, I'll kill her.”

Marietta kicked at his shin. “He'll kill me anyway. Just shoot him, Granddad!”

He wouldn't, and Hughes no doubt knew it. He wouldn't risk hitting her, and neither would her brother. They were in a stalemate.

But they weren't counting on Slade. If she stopped flailing for a minute, just a minute to get Hughes to relax a few precious degrees, he could slide forward and raise the rifle. It would have better aim than the pistols. More, she would react when she saw him. He knew she would, knew exactly what she would do—lunge, lurch, as frantic to reach him as he was to reach her. Maybe she'd break free, and even if she didn't, it would move her body away from Hughes's for a second.

Lord? If that's what I'm to do, I need Your help
.

Hoofbeats echoed through the night. For a second he feared the intrusion would spur Hughes to act, but the rider didn't seem to be veering their way. His shout, though, resounded through the trees. “Lincoln is shot! It just came over the wire! The president is shot!”

Hughes's laugh slicked like oil, oozing malice and darkness. The rest of them went stock-still, even the wind dying to nothing. His teeth flashed white in the moonlight. “We've won. We've
won
!”

“Not yet, you haven't.” Slade had the rifle resting against his shoulder, had Hughes's head in his sights. He had no idea where the strength came from to lift the heavy weapon, were it not straight from the Lord. Every pulse was a new pain, but it made time slow down. Made it so clear, so very clear.