Page 62 of Heart on the Line

“God be with you, Bledsoe.” Shaw tipped his hat.

“And with you,” Amos returned.

As the marshal touched his heels to the flanks of his ugly dun gelding and urged the horse into a canter, Amos studied the list Shaw had handed him. Two homesteads that had not been marked for a visit lay between him and Seymour. About two dozen lay behind him, on the road back to Harper’s Station. Grace could be at any one of them. Logic and laws of probability had already failed. Prayer and faith were still in play, but as much as Amos longed for clear direction from the Lord, he had yet to see a finger from heaven point the way.

“So what am I to do?” he mumbled under his breath. “Which way should I go?”

With the marshal heading north, it seemed illogical to cover the same ground, so Amos reined his mare toward Seymour.

About a quarter mile down the road, a narrow path veered off to the west, not wide enough for a wagon. It was probably a shortcut the area children took on their way to the schoolhouse. Yet when Amos drew nearer, he discovered small arcs cut into the thin line of hard-packed dirt. Hoofprints.

His pulse ratcheted up a level. It could be nothing. After all, he didn’t know the difference between a fresh track and a week-old one. But it could be something.

Riding on instinct and the hope that more than his gut was leading him down the narrow path, he nudged his mare to a trot and scanned the rapidly darkening area for anything out of the ordinary.

There, to the right. A small light bobbing as it moved east.

A lantern?

Pressure built in Amos’s chest until he feared he might explode. He nudged his mount off the path, toward a stand of juniper bushes. The gray of twilight made it difficult to distinguish shapes in the distance, but it also offered cover in a land where flat terrain and few trees did little to hide a man’s approach.

Amos dismounted, his eyes locked on the bobbing light. It disappeared around a dark shadow that must be a building. No light glowed from within, so a barn, perhaps?

Nervous energy flowed through Amos’s veins as renewed hope surged to life in his heart. He looped his horse’s reins over a low-hanging juniper branch, ran his palm over the handle of the Colt he’d borrowed, then crouched to make his height about the same as the scrub brush and slowly made his way toward the barn. After cresting a small rise, a second building came into view to the west. Light glowed around the edges of doorways and windows. A house. Would Lockhart be there instead?

No. The lantern light had moved east.

Carefully withdrawing the Colt from its holster, Amos held it ready as he dodged from bush to bush. Fifty feet. Twenty. Ten.

A female voice drifted toward Amos, freezing him in position. He crouched as low to the ground as he could manage, hiding behind a pitifully thin juniper while he strained to decipher the conversation a few scant feet away.

“ . . . brought you a pot of coffee too, warm from the stove.”

A pause.

“It was no trouble, I assure you. Would you like anything else? A book to help pass the time, perhaps? . . . My father keeps a pair of carriage lanterns in the tack room. I could come in and light them for you, if you like.”

Another pause. Amos tried to make out the second voice, but the low tones were too quiet. Muffled from inside the barn.

“Oh, well, if you’re sure.” The woman sounded disappointed, which speared hope through Amos’s chest. Whoever she was speaking to didn’t want her inside the barn. And it was her barn.

Only someone wielding recognizable authority could commandeer the control of another’s property without an argument. Someone like a Pinkerton agent. Or a man posing as a Pinkerton.

“I know.” The woman sighed. “I appreciate you taking such measures to protect us. You’re a noble man, detective.”

Detective. It had to be Lockhart. It had to be.

But Amos needed to be sure. The sheriff would require more than suspicions to mount an attack. He’d want proof. And Amos needed to see Grace with his own eyes, to confirm she was alive. His stomach churned at the thought of what state she might be in after being alone with Lockhart for so many hours, but he couldn’t allow his mind to settle there. Wounds would heal, and he could love her through any other trauma that lingered. The important thing was that she be alive.

His legs started to cramp from holding their unnatural position for so long, but Amos didn’t move as he waited for the woman with the lantern to return to the house.

“I’ll bring breakfast out at first light,” she said. “I know you want to get an early start.” Something her companion said made her titter. “You’re too kind . . . Well, then, good night.”

The sound of a large wooden door dragging closed rumbled in the night air. At the same time, the lantern bobbed back into view around the corner. The woman carrying it was nearly invisible, dressed all in black, but she was a no-nonsense sort and marched back to the house at a smart clip, leaving Amos a clear path to the barn.

Stretching the kinks out of his legs, Amos stood and cautiously approached. Careful to make as little sound as possible, he crept forward and hid himself in the shadows of the barn wall. Holding his revolver aloft, he inched along the side of the building. When he reached the corner, he hesitated. A drop of perspiration trickled down the side of his face.

He could do this. For Grace.