Rowena folded silk ribbons in the display. Working in the store seemed a good way to pay back Sharon’s hospitality. And it kept her mind occupied. However, nothing could stop her from thinking about Dale.
How could she love such a man? A killer. An outlaw. But she did. The seeds had been sown during those lazy afternoons in her jail cell, and the feeling had grown ever since. And then, when Dale stood up for her in front of Freddy and his jeering friends, that love had bloomed like a flower bursting open in the sunshine. The next hour, when they whirled on the dance floor, had been the happiest in her life.
The way she’d learned about Dale’s criminal past, ugly words spilled out in public, had been a shock. And it had been an even greater shock to discover that love could not be put out, like extinguishing a candle. Love remained, even against one’s will.
She should have let him go. Let him ride out. If the range war escalated again, Dale might have to kill. He’d be plunged right back into that world of violence he’d worked so hard to leave behind, and it would be her fault. And if he chose not to fight, he might end up dead, and she couldn’t bear the idea of Twin Springs costing the life of yet another person she loved. There was no solution. No solution at all. Only the coward’s way of running away again, and she was through being a coward.
The bell above the door jangled. Rowena put away the crimson silk, like a river of blood, and looked up. It was Mr. Faraday. He’d been in town the day before—she’d seen him through the display window, but he hadn’t come inside. Yesterday, he’d been unshaven, in dirty clothing, but today he had made an effort to tidy up his appearance.
“Miss Rowena. I wish I’d knowed you were here.”
“I’m helping out, just a few days. What can I get you?”
“I have something that belonged to your mother. An earring. Gold, with white and dark blue stones. I found it by the river, half buried in the sand. If I knowed you were here, I’d have brung it over.”
Mama’s earring! It must have been washed downstream to Faraday’s land. Yearning seized Rowena. If she could make the pair complete again, it would be a connection to her mother, something she could cherish. “Could you bring it in tomorrow? Please, Mr. Faraday.”
The man pushed back his hat and scratched his lank hair. “I’m kind of busy, Miss Rowena. Don’t have much time. With the poor grass, I need to keep moving my herd around.”
“But you were in town yesterday.”
“Forgot a few things.” He glanced at her, a shifty flicker, not quite meeting her eyes. “Now, if you could spare the time to ride home with me, I could let you have it tonight. One of my ranch hands could escort you back before dark.”
The idea of being alone with Faraday sent a shiver of alarm over Rowena, but she pushed her misgivings aside. She was not a coward. What could he do to her? Hold a gun to her head and demand that she sign the lease? Fine, she’d sign. That might be the easiest way to defuse the situation anyway, at least for a while. Dale would understand.
Rowena craned forward on the wagon bench, studying the buildings ahead as they pulled to a halt. It had been nearly ten years since she’d last seen Faraday’s ranch. Nothing she could see matched her recollection. The yard looked unkempt, the house ramshackle. Upstairs, a few broken windows had been boarded over. There was no sign of anyone about. She shouldn’t have come. At least she should have insisted on taking her own horse, a means to escape. Now it was too late.
“Miss Rowena.” Faraday held out a hand to help her down.
She pretended not to notice his outstretched hand and climbed down unassisted. Her skirts tangled with the wagon tongue. She yanked the garment free and heard the fabric rip.
“Don’t fret yourself, Miss Rowena.”
“Where is everyone? Who will drive me back into town?”
“Come.” Ignoring her questions, Faraday led the way toward the house.
Rowena surveyed her surroundings. It was no use. The land was flat, offering no hiding place. The summer temperatures would allow her to survive out of doors, but if she tried to run, Mr. Faraday would find her. She followed him inside, caution thrumming in every nerve.
The house smelled musty, unused. As they passed the kitchen door, the rancid odors of rotting meat nearly made her retch. On the way up the stairs, their footsteps stirred up clouds of dust.
“Where is everyone?” she asked again.
“There is no one, Miss Rowena. My sons are dead or gone, and I can’t afford to pay hired hands.”
“But you said...” She let the words trail away. There would be no ranch hand to escort her back into town. Too excited by the prospect of recovering Mama’s earring, she had acted rashly. Only now did she notice the strange glint in Mr. Faraday’s eyes, the nervous tick in his jaw, the tense, jerky movements of his limbs. Mr. Faraday must be losing his mind. She must act normal, humor him while she figured out a way to extricate herself from the situation.
Mr. Faraday opened a door. “This way.”
The room ahead was in darkness. It must be the one with boarded-up windows, Rowena thought. She halted, tried to retreat, but a rough hand closed around her arm and shoved her forward. Nearly stumbling, she lurched across the threshold.
Behind her, the door slammed shut. In the faint light that shone through the gaps in the timber nailed across the windows, Rowena could see the glass was not broken. Shuffling her feet, in case there were any obstacles on the floor, she made her way across the room. Past the narrow bed and the washstand that were the only furniture in the room.
Beneath the window, she found a smattering of sawdust, so fresh it still smelled of pine resin. It appeared the room had been turned into a prison. On the day before, Mr. Faraday had been in town. He must have spotted her behind the store counter and he had concocted a crazy plan to take her hostage.
She hurried back to the door and pummeled it with her fists, so hard the door rattled on its hinges. Pain shot up and down her arms, but she kept up her frantic pounding. “Let me out! Let me out!”
“Calm down, Miss Rowena. I mean you no harm. I’ll ride over to Twin Springs and leave a note for your husband, tell him that he can have you back when he signs the lease.”
“I’ll sign the lease. Let me out.”
A burst of laughter boomed through the door. “A woman’s name on a piece of paper is worthless. It’s your husband who has to sign.”
Rowena let her hands drop down to her sides. She was stuck, a prisoner in the house of a man whose sanity was crumbling. How long would it take Dale to get back from his trip? What would he do? She fought the surge of panic. Would he sign the lease, resolve the situation with peaceful means? Or would he embrace the violence he had tried to leave behind? If he did, it would be her fault. Her careless actions would force him to become the killer he had once been, and it might plunge him right back into that world of nightmares.
When there was no sidesaddle and a lady-trained horse available in Rawlins, Dale’s mother bought a fancy buggy and a smart, high-stepping bay mare. It would be a wedding present for her new daughter-in-law, she said.
They drove out of town before midday, with Dale’s saddle horse tied behind the buggy. He’d forgotten about his mother’s boundless energy. Despite the long journey in a locomotive, Madeline Hunter looked immaculate, every hair in place, her blue satin gown brushed clean and the worst of the soot stains removed.
She kept up a light chatter, until she seemed to run out of words. The silences grew longer. Finally, she spoke in a low voice. “Why, Dale? Why did you cut me out? Why did you not let me be part of your life? If you wanted a ranch, I could have bought you one three years ago, any property you chose.”
“How could I accept anything from you? Every time you looked at me, I could see resentment in your eyes. I knew what you were thinking. You were blaming me for letting Laurel die. For hiding behind a tree while she was being raped and murdered.”
“How can you say that?” his mother wailed and grabbed his arm. “Stop the horse. It’s high time we had this conversation, and I want your full attention.”
Dale brought the mare to a halt. His mother twisted sideways on the bench to face him. “How can you suggest that I would have preferred to lose both my children instead of only one? If you had not hidden, those soldiers would have killed you. You know it. I know it. Laurel knew it.”
“But I did nothing to help her. Nothing.”
“You survived. That was the best you could do. All you could do.”
“If that is what you think, how come you barely look at me?”
His mother emitted a small, choked sound. Her face crumpled, those faint lines suddenly turning into deep grooves that made her look tired and worn. She shook her head and blinked away tears. “It is my guilt you see when I look at you. I knew what you were planning. Every day, I watched you practice with a gun or a blade. You were a child, twelve years old, and I let you become consumed by hatred.”
“You could have done nothing to stop me.”
“I could have tried! I could have tried!” She was weeping now, tears running down her face. “But I didn’t. You were a child, and I let you become the instrument of my revenge. Every time you disappeared and came back looking a bit more hardened, a bit less human, I knew you’d killed one of those men and I felt a gloating sense of justice. It’s for Laurel, I told myself. And all along, I was sacrificing you. My guilt is because instead of helping you to heal and to forget, I let you remember. And you paid the price for it.”
“Mama...don’t cry.”
Sobs racked her slender frame. Dale couldn’t remember ever having seen his mother reveal her emotions like that. Even when her husband died, even when her daughter died, when her home was burned to the ground, she had hidden her grief behind a wall of reserve.
“Don’t tell me I can’t cry,” she said and rubbed her eyes. Her nose was red, her eyes swollen, every trace of vanity and restraint forgotten. “When you were small and skinned your knee, you’d run into the house and cry against my shoulder. It’s my turn now.”
Awkward, Dale put his arms around his mother and patted her back. She pressed her face to his shoulder, the flow of her tears soaking his shirt.
“Mama, I’m sorry,” Dale said softly. “I’m sorry I couldn’t save Laurel.”
“I know. But I wouldn’t have wanted you to do anything different. It would have been easier for you to die with her than it has been for you to live. I am grateful that you had the courage to survive.”
Rowena needn’t have worried she’d starve. After Mr. Faraday returned from leaving his message to Dale, he banged pots and pans in the kitchen, and an hour later he came to let her out of her makeshift prison. In the dining room, cobwebs hung from the ceiling, but her host had made an effort with a clean tablecloth and crockery.
She picked at her food. Mr. Faraday ate in gloomy silence. Afterward, he let her use the convenience before locking her in her upstairs room again. Rowena walked with stiff, cautious steps, careful not to reveal the fork she had managed to secrete away in her skirt pocket.
They were using the back stairs now, a narrow, poorly lit passage intended for servants. During the night, she had heard banging and crashing. She’d been terrified, but this morning she had learned the reason for those strange noises. The main staircase was blocked with discarded furniture, as if someone had cleared most of the bedrooms by throwing the contents down the stairs.
The next day, Mr. Faraday brought breakfast and lunch to her room. In the evening, he fetched her downstairs to dinner. Rowena walked behind him along the narrow staircase, her fingers curled around the stem of the fork. How hard would she have to strike between his shoulder blades? He was wearing a leather vest on top of his shirt. It would require great force for the tines of the fork to penetrate the layer of rawhide.
She eased her grip on the solid silver utensil, a relic of more affluent times. Dale ought to be back tonight. He’d ride over, sign the lease. Give Faraday what he wanted. Peaceful way was the best. Coward. The accusation whispered through her mind, but she closed her ears to it and concentrated on observing the man across the dinner table.
“Mr. Faraday, where are your sons?”
“Andrew is in Europe. Wants to be an artist.” He pronounced the word as if it involved sin. “Simon is in Philadelphia, working for that insurance company. He wants nothing to do with ranching.” Mr. Faraday looked up from his untouched plate. “Edward was the only one who loved the land the way I do. And now he is dead.” His eyes burned with fervor. “I can’t lose this place, Miss Rowena. My wife and my son are buried here. The small piece of ground where they lay is all I have left of them.”
Pity swelled in her, blotting out her fear, blotting out the anger. “I’m sorry, Mr. Faraday,” she said softly. “I’ll talk to my husband when he gets here. I’ll make sure he signs the lease.” She sighed, sinking deeper into the padded chair. “Just like you miss your wife and son, I miss my mama. It was a cruel trick to pretend you had found her earring.”
Faraday’s eyes bulged. His nostrils flared. His breathing grew harsh and his upper lip curled, exposing his teeth, like a wolf baring its fangs. “I did find it.”
“Oh, Mr. Faraday, why didn’t you say so before?” Rowena jumped to her feet. If the table hadn’t separated them, she would have embraced the man, even though the signs of his mental decay frightened her. “Please, can I have it? Can I see it?”
For a while, Faraday didn’t move. Then, as if in a trance, he pushed up to his feet. He left the table and walked toward the door. He didn’t invite her to follow. He ignored her, as if she had ceased to exist.
Her heart thundering so hard she could feel each thud against her ribs, Rowena set off after him. On tiptoe, she followed him through the rear hall. Up the gloomy, windowless back stairs. Across the landing. Into a large bedroom. Here, the furniture remained in place, ornate antique pieces that must have once cost a fortune. The last rays of the evening sun through the window illuminated the dust, the cobwebs, the black dots of mouse droppings on the floor. The room appeared to have been unused for years.
Faraday’s gaze slid toward a mahogany cabinet in the far corner.
Rowena could barely contain her eagerness. “There? In the cabinet? Please, get it for me, Mr. Faraday.”
With jerky motions, as if fighting against a current, her host walked over to the cabinet and crouched in front of it. He pulled a watch from his vest pocket and used a key hanging from the chain to unlock the cabinet. With an air of reverence, he lifted out a small wooden box decorated with ivory inlay and set it on top of the cabinet.
Rowena wanted to run closer, but something held her back. Her legs gave beneath her and she sank into the fraying armchair near the entrance. Confused thoughts, half-formed crazy ideas, tumbled around in her head, too terrifying to accept.
Mr. Faraday bent over the inlaid box and blew away the layer of dust on top. He selected another, smaller key on his watch chain, unlocked the box and lifted the lid. For a second, he stared at the contents. Because he stood with his back toward the room, Rowena couldn’t see his expression. But she could see his arm move, could see his hand dip into the box. When he turned around, something glinted between his thumb and forefinger.
Once more, Rowena jumped to her feet. She rushed over, met him halfway. Her eyes became riveted on the glittering diamonds and blue sapphires set in yellow gold he held between his fingers. “It is...it is Mama’s earring...”
Faraday stared at the jewel, mesmerized.
She put out her hand. “Let me see it.”
For a while, they stood frozen, as if locked in a combat of wills, her hand hovering beneath Faraday’s calloused fingers. Then he dropped the earring in her palm. Rowena bent her head to inspect it. Echoes of past grief mingled with the delight of discovery in her mind.
“It’s not tarnished at all.” She touched the jewel with a gentle fingertip to turn it over in her palm. The sapphires and diamonds sparkled in the setting sun. “Mr. Faraday, how did you clean it?”
When no reply came, she glanced up at him. Her host was back by the mahogany cabinet. He was staring into the open box, a look of morbid fascination on his face.
A layer of dust on the box. As if it hadn’t been touched in years. No sign of tarnish on the earring. As if it had never been buried in the sand—at least not for almost two decades.
Those confused, half-formed ideas she had tried to ignore took on solid shape and shot like a burning arc through Rowena’s mind, even more terrifying in their clarity. She fisted her hand over the earring, gripping so hard the prongs of the setting cut into her palm.
She didn’t want to face it. Didn’t want to know. But how could she not know.
“Do you have something else in there?” Each word came out strained, like a thorn in her throat. When Faraday didn’t move, when he merely kept staring into the box, the need to know spurred Rowena into action. She rushed over to the cabinet, her shoes clattering against the floorboards, dust flying up in puffs, and she craned to peer over Faraday’s shoulder.
Before she could see into the box, Faraday slammed the lid shut. He seized the box away and clutched it to his chest. “Don’t look! Don’t look!”
“Let me see!” She tried to wrench the box away from him. The earring slipped from her fingers and fell to the floor, where it rolled and rattled around like a gambler’s die.
Oblivious to the loss of the jewel, Rowena clawed at the hard wooden edges of the box with her fingernails, trying to pry open the lid. Her elbow jabbed at Faraday’s gaunt ribs. Her shoulder slammed against his sunken chest. Using all her strength, she twisted and pulled, fighting for the control of the wooden box.
With a cracking sound, the hinges gave way and the lid snapped away. Something fell out of the box and tumbled through the air, like the flicker of a sorrel horse’s tail. And then it lay down on the floor, almost hidden in the shadows, but she could recognize it for what it was—strands of long, red hair, brittle with age, and faded to the color of rust.
“I told you not to look!” Faraday was screaming now. “I told you not to look!”
Unable to move, unable to think, Rowena stared down at her mother’s scalp. “But they said...they said it was Indians...the Shoshone...”
“I never meant to kill her. I never meant to kill her!” Faraday’s eyes were rolling in their sockets, his body shaking. “I only wanted to kiss her. But she fought against me, tried to push me away. She slipped and hit her head on a rock.” He covered his face with his hands, as if to shut out the visions of the past. “It was an accident. I feared nobody would believe me, so I chanted like the Indians and took her scalp. I never meant to kill her!”
Dazed, Rowena shook her head. All those years of hating the Shoshone, blaming the Indians for her mother’s death. No one had ever suspected any different. She recalled the old chief who had talked about an Arapaho brave with a long flame-red scalp. But that scalp must have belonged to some other woman. Someone else’s mother, sister, wife, daughter.
She stared at Mr. Faraday and spoke haltingly, the information too enormous to take in. “You... It was you all along... You killed her.”
Faraday uncovered his face. He squared his shoulders, the memory of past authority stamped in his ramrod posture. “You can’t tell. I’ll be ruined.”
Up to that moment, the shock of revelation had dulled Rowena’s reaction. It had been so long ago the truth didn’t seem to matter anymore. It wouldn’t change anything. But now, Faraday’s selfish demand whipped her into anger. Did he expect her to hold her silence? To forgive and forget? He’d killed her mother. And he expected her to protect him.
She faced him, disgust and loathing in every gesture. “You have to go to the sheriff, Mr. Faraday.”
“No! You can’t tell.” He took a step toward her. He was panting now, his breath coming with a wheezing sound. His eyes darted wildly, unable to focus. Saliva trickled from one corner of his mouth and dripped to the front of his wrinkled shirt.
Rowena recoiled a step. Then another.
Faraday followed. He tossed the broken box aside. It smashed against the floor, the sound as sharp as a gunshot. Faraday lifted his hands. The bony fingers flexed and curled in the air, like the claws of a predator. “You can’t tell,” he screamed, spittle spraying in the air. “You can’t tell!”
Rowena whirled about and ran. Behind her, she could hear the crash of furniture, followed by the thud of footsteps. She burst into the corridor, raced down the hallway. The footsteps chased her. Their beat grew faster, the sound louder. He was gaining on her.
When she reached the landing, she hurtled toward the stairs. Her skirts were flaring and flapping around her legs, slowing her down. She felt a sudden jerk as Faraday reached out and grabbed at the bustle gathered at the back of her gown, attempting to jerk her off balance. She stumbled, fell forward, spun around and crashed against the balustrade of the galleried landing, the layers of petticoats softening the impact.
Faraday loomed over her, so close his boots tangled with the hem of her skirts. The smell of his rancid breath filled Rowena’s nostrils, nearly making her retch. And then she was spared from the repulsive odor, because a pair of gnarled hands wrapped around her neck and squeezed down on her throat, cutting off her air.