Page 52 of Heart on the Line

Amos nodded and ducked through the window again, leaving the marshal to use the door. Thank heavens Shaw wasn’t one of those ponderers who had to know all the facts before taking any action. He’d accepted Amos’s assumption of Dunbar’s guilt without batting an eye. Probably because Dunbar was the only outsider to suspect. Other than Amos. But he was here and the Pinkerton was not, so no debate was required.

What he did require was a horse. Or a bicycle. Something to carry him at greater speed than his legs. For the marshal was right—the footprints headed west.

Amos pushed up from his crouch just as Shaw rounded the corner. “This way.” Amos waved for the marshal to follow him and jogged toward the station house. The greater the distance from the telegraph office, the higher the grass, which meant he couldn’t see the footprints, but that didn’t matter. The station house was the only logical place for Dunbar to secrete a horse.

Shaw loped up beside him, his longer legs carrying him into the lead.

“Mal! Wait!” An out-of-breath female voice rang out behind them.

The marshal skidded to a halt.

Amos kept going. Shaw could wait if he wanted. Amos was under no such compunction. The town could be under Indian attack, and he’d still find a way to go after Grace.

He reached the house, ran past the front porch, and slowed as he rounded the far corner. Even without his glasses, he would have been able to see the evidence he’d been dreading. Ground chewed up by horse hooves. Boot prints and marks from a smaller shoe. Indistinct, as if the feet that had left them behind had been dragged.

Amos’s chest squeezed. Oh, Grace. If only he had left the ladies to unload their bicycles on their own. If only he’d kept a better eye on Dunbar. If only—

A hand gripped his shoulder. Amos lifted his head and met the marshal’s resolute gaze. “We both let her down, but that doesn’t mean we can’t make it up to her. We’ll find her, Bledsoe.”

“Mal knows every inch of the land around these parts.”

Amos turned to find Emma Shaw striding toward them, her face taut with worry even as her eyes radiated faith in her husband and in a source greater than all of them. Another woman tagged behind. Dark hair, a bit wild and unruly, and a frown that turned her otherwise pretty face into a pinched mask that warned him to keep his distance.

Fine with him.

“We need horses.” Amos turned his attention back to Shaw. “They can’t be too far ahead.”

“You can take mine,” Emma offered, and Amos found himself suddenly grateful for her intrusion.

“Thanks.” He gave her a quick nod. “He’s after the documents, and judging by the mess I found in her office, he figured out she’s not going to hand them over willingly. I’m certain he’s working for Haversham, but I’m praying that as a Pinkerton, he’ll have enough moral fiber left to keep him from going so far as to torture an innocent woman to get the information he seeks.”

“I wouldn’t count on that.”

Amos scowled at the dark-haired woman. “Why not?”

She stared right back. Angry, defiant. And clutching a book in her right hand that looked like a Bible. “Because he ain’t a Pinkerton. And he’s already proved himself a killer.”

26

The man in glasses paled at her words. Helen inwardly winced. Perhaps she’d been too blunt, but they didn’t have time to sugarcoat things. Not since that name-stealing skunk had Grace.

“How do you know?” Bledsoe took a step toward her. The marshal put a restraining hand on the fellow’s chest and halted his progress.

Helen took her own step closer. She wasn’t afraid of the man bristling in front of her. She knew how fragile hope could be and how hard a person would fight to hold onto the thinnest thread. But he needed to understand what they were up against. The truth might be brutal, but it would serve Grace better than wishful thinking.

“I know because I found the real Elliott Dunbar left for dead out in the pecan grove near the farm.” She handed Lee’s Bible to Emma. “I found this in his saddlebags yesterday when I ran across his abandoned horse on my way home from church, but I didn’t realize what it meant until this morning when I saw the Family Records page. That’s when the truth clicked, and I rushed straight here.”

Emma flipped a couple pages then read the top name out loud. “Elliott Leander Dunbar, born April 7, 1865.” She frowned. “So the man you just told me about, the one you’ve been nursing, is the real Pinkerton agent?”

Helen nodded. “Yep. That other fella stole Lee’s papers. Right after he shot him off his horse, bashed him in the skull, and left him to bleed to death in the scrub brush.”

Bledsoe shrank back. “Oh, Grace . . .” His voice cracked.

Emma moved past Malachi and touched Bledsoe on the arm. “Grace is a fighter, Amos. And she’s clever. She’ll be all right.”

The marshal placed his palm at the small of Emma’s back and nodded, as if a few sappy words would make a difference. They didn’t need platitudes. They needed action.

“She carries a derringer,” Shaw said, the first practical thing to come out of this conversation. “And she knows how to use it. Pulled it on me once.”