Page 70 of The Widow and the Wanted

I hate how my heart listens to him, even when I've trained my mind to steel myself through his appeals to my family, my faith. I should have known any help he offered would come tied to a leash.

“I came because there is a woman who survived,” I say. “Because there is a man with money enough to buy badges and bury bodies, and because if we do not stop him, he will keep killing until the only story left is his own.”

At that, my father’s eyes narrow, not in sympathy, but in calculation.

“Once the weather clears, the woman may be placed under federal protection. Your own part in this may yet be managed. But if you want my help,” he says, “you must sever all ties with that man. I will not spend my name protecting the life you have chosen.”

That is the cost, then.

Lula handed over. Boone abandoned. Myself placed neatly back under my father’s hand like a mislaid handkerchief tucked back into his pocket.

But Hollister would still be out in the Territory with his money, his hired men, and his influence. Cleared or not, Boone and I would still be the men who saw what happened. Lula would still be the woman who lived.

He must take my silence for consideration, because he presses on, sweetening the offer.

“You are an educated man,” he says. “A man of standing. A man who could be of real use here. To the government. To your people.”

I glare at him. “My people. Because if I stand behind whatever bargain the government puts before the Mvskoke, they’ll believe it’s safe.”

His face gives nothing away.

“I am well aware of the value you place on that,” I say. “It is exactly why your offers have never interested me. I did not come here for work. I did not come to be absolved.” My voice tightens despite myself. “I came for help from someone with a conscience. Someone who I thought might do what was right. Not only for me. For Boone. For Lula. No matter your personal feelings.”

“My only concern is you, my son. That you return to your family, and to your faith.”

“I never left my faith. I left you.”

The blow lands. His face hardens.

“Yet here you are again.” He shakes his head. “If Hollister is as dangerous as you claim, then accusing him openly is the surest way to get that woman killed. And you with her.” His lip curls faintly. “The United States is in the middle of important negotiations with the Five Tribes. This is not the hour to throw a timber concern and a massacre into the middle of it because you continue to behave like a petulant child.”

My jaw aches from how hard I hold it shut. The defensiveness rises, hot and humiliating, and I hate that he can still summon it in me with a sentence.

“Then keep it simple,” I say, measuring each word. “Send a marshal to the cabin. He can take her statement there. He can escort her to safety. See justice done.”

“No marshal worth the badge will go ranging half frozen through the Territory in this weather for your sake,” he says, as if the notion is absurd. “The roads are half lost, the rivers mean, and winter has only begun. You rode in on foolishness and luck. You will not ride out on it. You should stay here, in Okmulgee, until it is passable."

I barely made it here myself through wind and snow. The three of us will not be safe making a long journey now, not with the sky falling and Hollister’s men still sniffing after us.

“I cannot abandon them there. I have to go back before the season turns worse.”

He leans back in his chair, the wood creaking beneath him. He picks up his pen and turns it between his fingers once, twice.

“Then you have until the first show of spring,” he says. “When the roads clear and the weather eases, bring the woman here and make your choice. After that, I will assume you have chosen otherwise, and I will not interfere with what follows.”

My father rises first, in a way that confirms that his is the last word on the subject. He opens the office door with the same practiced motion he uses to end a hearing.

I rise, nod once, and step past him.

“Until spring,” he says. “Please, be careful.”

Then he steps back into his office and closes the door with a soft, final click.

Heat floods my face as I stand outside it, fists clenched. I turn away before I do something foolish and stalk back through the main room, where men still wait with their folded papers, as though the world might truly be made safer by men like my father giving orders in it.

Beside the cigar box on the side table sits an amber decanter with two fingers gone from it. I take the bottle first, then the box, tucking both beneath my coat. No one stops me. One man glances up, then looks away again.

Outside, the wind snaps, sharp as a whip.