Wilderness Trail of Love (American Wilderness Series Romance Book 1) (25 page)

“My honor requires it, Mrs. Adams. I may not hold an official title now, but I’m still a lawman and it’s my duty to uphold the law. I’m morally obligated to go after them. My brothers will agree.”

Catherine looked around. “Will none of you stop him from risking his life?”

“He’s right,” Stephen said. “They need to be found or they might attack us further down the trail. They killed your husband in cold blood and they will do it again. Better for us to go after them, than risk their ambush later.” He turned to William. I’m going with you.”

Jane’s heart sank, but Stephen was right. The killers needed to be found.

“They have almost two days lead on you. You don’t know where they’ve gone,” Catherine argued.

“William is an excellent tracker. So is Stephen,” Sam said. “Stephen grew up tracking in the mountains and hills. Once they find the campsite where you were attacked, they’ll know where the killers are headed.”

“I’ll go too,” Bear volunteered.

“No,” Stephen said. “I want you here to help protect my family.”

“I wish you and William would reconsider,” Catherine said.

“Wyllies don’t let murderers and thieves get away with their crimes,” Jane said.

“You’ll be well protected. Sam, Bear, and John will stay with you and the children,” Stephen told Jane. “It won’t take us long to find the killers.”

She did not say a single word to him. Nor did she that night.

But she thought about him. About what had happened to her family. She missed her girls. She yearned for a baby to hold and care for. She missed the way Amy would tug at her apron, wanting to be held. She wanted their happy home back.

And, she missed loving her husband. She missed the feel of his strong arms around her. She missed their conversations. She longed to be back in his arms again.

She missed their life.

Could she forgive him?

The next morning, they all agreed to meet at Cat Springs, about one week west of their current location. The night before, Catherine had written down a detailed description of the two men and their horses. She also gave them the approximate location of the attack,
and a list of their stolen belongings, including a description of her husband’s horse. William read the list over and put it in his waistcoat pocket.

The two left as the sun came up behind them, the strong new rays falling across their backs.

Jane said a silent prayer to the sound of the horses’ hooves as they galloped away. She didn’t want either one of them hurt. Stephen sat his stallion straight and rigid, his shoulders broad, ready to take on the burden of hunting down the killers. She realized she had put a terrible weight on those shoulders.

“How can you just calmly watch them ride off after murderers?” Catherine asked.

“I’m not calm.” In fact, her stomach was tightening with apprehension. But, Stephen and William were in God’s hands, on the side of righteousness, and they’re Wyllies. She told herself not to fret. As much to convince herself as Catherine, she said, “But I will not worry. Those murdering thieves better start worrying though.”

“Why haven’t you told him?” Catherine asked after she learned Jane was with child, the reason for her fussy stomach.

“Our two girls died less than a month ago. We’re both still grieving. We’re having a difficult time coping with their loss. I wanted the pain to ease before I said anything about this son.”

“How do you know it’s a son?”

Jane caressed her tummy. “I just do. For some reason, I know this child more than the others I’ve carried. I’m not sure why yet, but I know he’ll do something important with his life.”

Catherine blinked away tears. “I lost our first baby last year in Boston. That’s one reason I wanted to leave on this trip, to get away from that memory. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to have another. The doctor wasn’t sure.”

“I’m so sorry Catherine. You will be blessed with another child if you are intended to have more.”

“First, He will have to bless me with another husband when I return to Boston. But this time I’ll marry for love, not for my father. Since I was fifteen, Mr. Adams was the man my father thought I should marry. When the time came, I wasn’t given a choice. Everyone, including me, took it for granted that I would marry him. He was a nice enough man, with a lot of ambition—that’s why we were on our way to Kentucky. He wanted lots of land for a timber business. But something was always missing from our marriage. I guess it was love. I’ll not marry again until I’m sure I’m loved.”

“Why do you want to return to Boston?”

“What choice do I have? That’s where my family is. I hope to meet up with a respectable family like yours traveling north that will let me travel with them to a city on the east coast. I can take a coach home from there to Boston.”

“You have another choice. You can come with us. You’re welcome to join our family.”

“That’s generous of you. But I won’t be a burden to anyone and I have no one in Kentucky,” Catherine protested.

“You won’t be a burden and you’ll have us. I could use the help and company of another woman. Keeping up with all these men and children by myself is beyond a challenge. Please stay with us Catherine. I’d be deeply disappointed if you left.”

“How do you know we can be friends? How can you trust a
woman you barely know with your children?” Catherine asked with a glance at the playing children.

“Just as I know my unborn son. I do,” Jane said.

“I would be honored to be your friend.”

“Maybe I need you. I never conceived of the extreme difficulties and dangers we would face. It’s beyond anything I could have imagined. You’ve found that out too. We’ve both lost loved ones. Had I known what it would be like, I would have stayed in my home. It was small, but comfortable.” Remembering their cozy home, she barely kept her anger in check.

“I know you’re still angry. That bitter anger spawned by the death of a child was part of the problem between me and my late husband.”

“Stephen should never have taken us on this journey,” Jane continued. “Maybe I should have refused to go. But I didn’t have the heart to void his dream. And he seemed unstoppable, as he is now. I begged him to turn around. But he won’t turn back. For Martha and Polly’s sake, I’ll make the best of it. Please stay Catherine. I admit I need you.”

Catherine refilled her coffee cup, waiting a moment before responding. “I’ll stay temporarily, until William and Stephen come back. I feel responsible that they’ve left you and I have to be certain they’ll return safely. But before I make a final decision, I want to talk to the others first.”

“Agreed. And they will return safely.” She prayed she was right and remembered Stephens’s words.
Nothing on earth is as strong as my love
.

CHAPTER 27

I
t was the first time Stephen had joined William in a pursuit of lawbreakers. He’d heard stories of his brother’s uncanny instincts for tracking down criminals. Funny, William couldn’t seem to track a deer or any other animal without his or Sam’s help, but his brother had a sixth sense for the criminal mind.

It took until noon to get to the site of Adams’ murder, a lonely stretch on the road leading to Lancaster, between the villages of Coatesville and Gap. They studied the area for some time. Fortunately, it hadn’t rained since the murder and they found several valuable clues. Catherine had buried her husband, but not the man she killed.

“It must have been hard on her to dig a grave and bury a husband alone,” William said.

They gazed at the lonely plot of rock-covered earth. There must have been a couple hundred rocks on the grave.

“You’re right, but she strikes me as the kind of woman who could manage,” Stephen said. “She certainly tried her best to give him a decent burial. This must have taken her hours.”

Wolves had left little of the other man but his boots, bits of clothing, and his gun. “His initials are carved on the butt,” William said. “D R T. If he’s related to the other two, and that’s a definite possibility, their surname name would start with a T.”

“Unless he stole the gun from somebody else,” Stephen suggested.

“That’s a possibility, but I don’t think so. The same initials are carved on this knife.” William put both in his saddlebag and mounted his horse. “We’re done here.”

“They won’t be hard to track,” Stephen said.

“No, the hoof prints of four horses lead away from here—the horses of the two we’re after, Adams’ steed, and the dead robber’s mount. And these guys are lazy. They make their living robbing decent folks—too lazy for anything difficult, like climbing these hills through the timber to make them hard to follow. My bet is they’ll just follow the road to their next victim or town.”

“Hope it’s not more victims,” Stephen said.

They rode on through desolate country. Concentrating on following the killers’ clear trail, William barely spoke a word. That suited Stephen who was lost in thoughts of Jane. The landscape also fitted his mood perfectly. Empty and lonely.

He missed her love. Could he ever get it back?

They followed the tracks until dusk when they made camp near a natural spring. After a cold dinner of jerky and day old biscuits, they stretched out to sleep.

“Thanks for coming along,” William said into the darkness.

“No thanks necessary.”

“Just the same, I’m glad you’re here.”

Stephen waited a moment before replying. “I’m not sure I’m glad we’re here.”

“What do you mean?” William asked.

“I don’t mean chasing these murderers. That had to be done. I’m talking about this journey.”

“West is where your dreams are, where our futures are, all of ours—even Jane’s, although she may have forgotten that in her grief.”

“Do you think she’ll ever forgive me?”

The question hung in the darkness between them for several moments before William answered. “There’s nothing to forgive, so no. Dreams always require sacrifices. The important thing is to not let those sacrifices be for nothing.”

“By God, I won’t let them be.” He rolled over on his pallet and tugged his blanket over his back, signaling the end of their conversation.

Out of his grief came a new resolve to find what he had come for—his land and their future.

At dawn, both men climbed into the saddle, eager to follow the path of their prey once again.

“This is like tracking a herd of cows,” William said after they had gotten underway. “They’re not hard to follow.”

Stephen resented the analogy. “These bastards are more like skunks than cows. Mr. Adams was following a dream of going west, just as we are. These whoresons turned it into a nightmare. Left his wife a widow, robbed her of her possessions.”

By late afternoon, the road forked at the western end of the valley they had just crossed. William dismounted and dropped the reins. Trained to stand still when the reins were on the ground, the gelding took the opportunity to munch a few blades of grass, snorting loudly between bites. William hiked a short distance up the road and back again, studying the ground, while he did the same in the opposite direction.

“They went north,” William finally said.

“Then we head north.”

The little-used north trail rapidly became a steep uphill climb. The horses tired as they climbed rock covered inclines.