9

The door stopped, blocked by the chair, and then the knob rattled.

“Mr. Boden?” A man’s voice was followed by a hard knock on the door. “Are you all right?”

Chance looked at Ronnie, and they both heaved a sigh of relief.

Ronnie rushed to the door. “Just a minute, Dr. Radcliffe.”

Chance wanted to help. He wanted to stand between Ronnie and that door. Even though he knew the doctor’s voice well after these last few weeks.

Instead, Ronnie unblocked the door, and the doctor came in frowning. “What are you doing with that chair, Mrs. Boden? What’s going on here?” His eyes darted between Ronnie and Chance. The eyes then widened, and the doctor blushed. “Uh, you really shouldn’t . . . your leg needs . . . that is, if you’d like, I could come back, uh, later . . .”

It took Chance a few moments to figure out what the stammering was about. Then he knew. A married couple. Behind a locked door.

“It’s not that,” he said. As if Chance had any hope of romance with his leg in pain every time he moved.

The doctor blushed even deeper. Chance hurried to get to a reasonable subject. “We need your help, Doc, and it’s serious. A letter came today . . .” The doctor said he didn’t want to hear the details, so Chance skipped ahead and got right to the point. “It was no accident I was hurt, Doc. Whoever attacked me might strike again, up here in Denver. I need to get out of this hospital and find a place where we can protect ourselves.” And there Chance lay, flat on his back. Talking about taking action when he couldn’t even move.

“Not with your leg. It needs more time to heal.”

“I’ll be very careful with my leg, I promise. I want to be walking right when this is over with, and I know the care you’ve taken of me and how blessed I am to have your skill and the Lord’s healing working through your hands. But you don’t want a gunman to come into this hospital. Those who tried to kill me sent a rockslide down on my head, and a group of my hired men rode with me. They didn’t care who else died. If my enemies come here, they may shoot anyone who gets in their way.”

The doctor’s frown turned downright grim. “You’re right. You do need to get out of here.”

“Is it possible for me to go home?”

“You mean to your ranch?”

“Yes, I could take the train all the way to New Mexico Territory. That’s an easy ride coming up.”

Ronnie interrupted, “Chance, you were unconscious for most of it. You don’t know what kind of ride it was.”

Chance pressed on. “I don’t know much about fancy train cars, but maybe I could find one to borrow or rent. I could have a bed and be careful the whole time. Once I get back home, I can—”

“I’m afraid that isn’t possible.” Dr. Radcliffe was adamant. “A train is a modern marvel, but every turn of those wheels shakes the train and it’s constant. You’ll be bounced along for hours and hours. While it’s not a rough ride, it might shake apart a newly knitted bone and completely undo the healing of your leg. It just needs a few more weeks. You sure you can’t stay put?”

“What, stay here and wait for a killer to find me? It’s not safe here, and I’m putting my wife in mortal danger. You too if you happened to be in the hospital when an assault comes. And what kind of danger will I bring down on the patients in here with me?”

“Well, you can’t take the train.” As he mulled the situation over, the doctor plucked at the whiskers near his bottom lip, as if coaxing out an idea.

Ronnie said, “There must be somewhere safe here in Denver.”

“I’m sure there is, but where?” The doctor was skinny and short, wore a threadbare suit with a stained white shirt. Chance got the impression the man wasn’t poor, despite his manner of dressing. He was just absentminded about his appearance, probably because he was consumed with trying to save lives.

“Moving you could be done if we’re gentle. We could spirit you away from the hospital. I can think of a way to handle that. Then we’d have to make sure we aren’t followed.”

Chance liked the way Dr. Radcliffe said “we” as if he were part of this now.

“We could lay thick blankets in a wagon so the ride would be less dangerous for you, and we’d need to find somewhere close. Let me think.”

There was a long silence. Chance looked at Ronnie, and the two of them turned back to stare at the doctor, awaiting his answer.

Finally the doctor’s chin lifted. He left off his beard-stroking. His eyes took on a bright gleam and he smiled. “I know just the place.”

“I got a letter from Ma! She and Pa say we can come!” Sadie looked a little dizzy with excitement.

Justin was hoping her excitement would just sweep her right out the door all the way to Denver.

“Heath,” Angie said with a bright smile, “that means you get to meet Sadie’s parents.”

Justin really needed to catch Angie up with what was going on around here. “Heath has been working on the CR since before Pa was hurt. In fact, Heath saved Pa’s leg—maybe even his life.”

“Th-then why does he need to go to Denver?”

“I don’t.” Heath gave Sadie and her happiness a nervous glance.

“Because he hasn’t met them as their son-in-law yet.” Justin spoke over top of Heath.

Sadie’s smile faded, but her shoulders rose and her chin raised higher. Justin was struck by how much she looked like Ma. Right down to the grit.

“If we’re needed here, we stay. Ma’s letter said a few other things. She’s upset we didn’t tell her about Cole right away. She had heard that Heath was shot, and I’d never told her that. Oh my, she had quite a lot to say. Now that I consider it, waiting to go until she calms down isn’t that bad of an idea.”

“I’ll take you to Denver sometime, Sadie. And we need to go visit my family in Rawhide. We’ll see your folks. And then on our way back we’ll get off the train in Colorado City, ride to see my family, then come on back here.”

“That will be fine.”

“You’re going to Denver now.” Justin broke into their reasonable little talk.

“Just because you found her name—”

“You’re both going.” Justin cut Heath off. “With Dantalion gone and winter setting in, it’s a good time. They can’t regroup until spring.”

Heath snorted. Mighty rude.

“Why aren’t you two sitting with Cole?” Justin wished he’d had more time to talk sense into Heath. Why the man felt it necessary to tell Sadie every single thought in his head was a mystery.

“Mel is here.” Sadie mentioned Melanie, the daughter of their nearest ranching neighbor, Jack Blake, and a lifelong friend of the family. “Found my name where?”

“In a note—”

“We hauled Dantalion’s body up the cliff.” Justin cut Heath off, trying to stop him from telling Sadie everything. “We left his body hidden in the woods. If one of our cowhands is a traitor, I don’t want them to know he’s dead. We’ll take him to the sheriff as soon as we can.”

“I’ll leave so you can discuss this without an outsider listening in.” Justin heard pain in Angie’s voice. “In fact, now that Mel is here, I should get back to the orphanage. I’m in the way here . . .” Her voice broke then, and she quit talking altogether and turned to leave the room.

Justin grabbed her. He wasn’t going to add hurting her feelings to the day’s troubles. Not when she’d worked so hard with them to save Cole.

He turned her to face him. “I’m being a half-wit, I know that. Heath and I found out something I don’t think Sadie should know.”

“Sadie? But Heath will tell her the minute—”

“I’d hoped”—Justin was having trouble letting anyone finish a thought—“I could talk him out of it, but he’s determined.”

“Sadie girl, your big brother and I found a notebook.” Heath spoke so quietly, Justin could barely hear him.

Justin fumbled in his pocket and walked over to hand a little packet of papers to Sadie, opening it as he went. “Your name, with the word bait beside it.”

Sadie stared at the paper a long while, then swallowed hard. “And you think Heath and I should leave? That I should go see Pa and Ma in Denver so I’ll be safe?” Her voice rose with every word. “Even though Heath and I would have to abandon you and Cole when there’s danger all around?”

“That’s not—”

“Yes, that’s exactly what he wants.” Heath talked over top of Justin this time. “And I told him we aren’t going.”

“We’re not going anywhere, Justin.” Sadie took Heath’s side completely.

“No, I can see you’re not. All right, we’ll hire more cowhands, do a better job of posting sentries. We know the danger and we’ll be on guard.”

“Only you can’t hire a bunch of tough men to ride for you because you don’t know who to trust. You already know someone at this ranch has betrayed you. And our prisoner in town was a man hanging around in Skull Gulch. Right where you’d go to hire more men. Maybe men are waiting in town right now, hoping they can hire on.”

“We need to ferret out who we can’t trust,” Justin said. “And I’ve got an idea how to do it.”

“Whoever it was planned to report to Dantalion most likely. Now that he’s dead, your traitor has no one to tell his tales to.”

Sadie asked, “Can’t you at least trust John and Alonzo?”

Heath and Justin exchanged a long look.

Sadie nodded. “I would trust John with my very life. And we have good reason to believe we can trust Alonzo.” She said to Angie, “The day Cole was shot, we found Alonzo’s father holed up in an old house, the house Maria was telling us about that night I came to the orphanage. Alonzo’s father had a gun drawn and aimed at us because he thought we meant him harm. Alonzo helped calm things down and convinced his father to put his pistol away. If Alonzo had bad intentions toward the Bodens, that would have been his chance to do terrible damage. And he was with us when someone opened fire on us.”

“Maybe,” Justin said, “but he and his pa had gone ahead. They weren’t under fire.”

Sadie gave a sigh. “As much as we want to believe Alonzo isn’t the source of the trouble, we still don’t want to tell him what we are up to. Even if he’s loyal to us, careless talk might spread the word without any betrayal intended. And that includes your talk, Angie. Be careful not to mention this to anyone, not even casually.”

“Keeping my thoughts to myself is a habit I’ve developed to an art.”

“What does that mean?” Justin asked.

She shook her head at him and waved away the question.

Heath took up the story. “We need to figure out who at the ranch told Dantalion where your pa would be the morning of the avalanche. And those outlaws held off the attack until we were on the way home from de Val’s hacienda. Someone gave them the word we were headed that way. We’d be dead if we hadn’t turned off the main trail and ridden up that nightmarish shortcut.”

“The only ones who knew,” Heath went on, “were your cowhands. Just as they were the only ones who knew your pa was headed into the path of their avalanche. One of them passed word on to Dantalion on mighty short notice.”

Justin nodded. “And whoever informed him might be planning something else and have it ready for the next time we’re vulnerable. Our backstabbing hired hand might ride out to find Dantalion, not knowing he’s dead. If we lay a false trail, we could watch and see who the turncoat is. You noticed I left Dantalion in the woods, didn’t you, Heath?”

Heath’s head lifted slowly. Bright blue eyes flashed. “I did, but I thought it was because you didn’t want to upset the ladies.”

“It had occurred to me that no one knows he’s dead but us.”

With a tight smile, Heath said, “We have to act fast. Whichever of your cowpokes was tipping off Dantalion may already have tried to contact him.”

“This time the ones setting a trap are going to be us Bodens.” Justin took the notebook and pressed it into Sadie’s hands. “See if you can read the early parts of this. We haven’t had time to do more than take a glance, and it’s small, tight handwriting. We’ll drop Dantalion off in town and make sure the sheriff keeps things quiet. Then we’ll set a trap for the rat who’s betraying us while he’s on our payroll, and once it snaps shut, we’ll see if he starts squealing.”