Page 83 of In Honor’s Defense

Kendall looked up from his paper-strewn table and dipped his head in Luke’s direction. “Mr. Davenport.”

Luke stepped past the other Horsemen and extended his hand to the man best situated to find Damaris. “Call me Preach.”

Kendall straightened. His stature barely brought his head in line with Luke’s shoulder, but he exuded confidence and intelligence, two things Luke craved at the moment.

Kendall clasped his hand. “Preach.” He had a firm grip. “The first thing I need is a physical description of Mr. Mullins and the man traveling with him. Matt already provided a description of Miss Baxter, but I’m afraid brown hair and eyes along with average build didn’t help much in narrowing down the field. Dozens of women fit that description.”

But Damaris was so much more than that. How had Matt, with his keen observation skills, failed to notice?

“She’s wearing a dark blue traveling dress with one of them lacy shirts that buttons to the neck.” Luke wiggled his fingers in front of his throat in case that helped draw a better picture than his inelegant words. Heaven knew his pitiful vocabulary failed to do her justice. “She wears a black mourning brooch in honor of her brother, and her hair is always braided and wrapped around her head like a crown.” He looked at Matt. “Her hair’s about the same color as Percival’s coat.”

“Good grief,” Mrs. Kendall muttered somewhere behind the gathered men. “You can’t compare a woman to a horse.”

Maybe not in normal circumstances, but if there was one thing cavalrymen understood, it was horses. Matt was already nodding his agreement of Luke’s assessment, and the other Horsemen were no doubt firming up a mental image of Damaris that was more accurate than the nondescript brown hair and brown eyes they’d been working from previously.

Luke went on to describe Ronald Mullins with his fair hair, fancy suit, and ridiculous waxed mustache. When it came to the lawyer’s companion, Luke focused as much on the weaponry the rustler carried as his features.

“This the same fellow who carved you up and left you for dead?” Jonah asked.

Luke nodded. “Yep. But two days ago he tried to strangle a kid in the middle of a prairie fire he set.” He gave Kendall and the others a quick rundown on the fire, Nate’s attempted arrest before that, and the suspicious nature of Douglas Baxter’s death prior to Damaris’s arrival in Madisonville. “Harbinger’s been buying up land between Navasota and Madisonville, using whatever means necessary. When rustling Oliver Grimes’s cattle didn’t convince him to sell, they moved on to bribery. Damaris and Nate are the last holdouts, and things have gone from bad to worse for them. Best we can guess, the railroad plans to build a spur and Harbinger intends to profit on the land deal.”

Luke turned to Matt and held his captain’s gaze. “Mullins is gonna try to force Damaris to sign away Nate’s land. And the man he’s got with him has no qualms about using a knife to get what he wants.” Bile rose in the back of Luke’s throat. He forced himself to continue. They needed to understand what was at stake and how little time they had to act. “Whether she signs or not, they can’t let her leave Austin alive. Not when she can testify against them. As soon as they get what they want from her, she’s as good as dead.”

Matt scowled. “And if they can’t get it from her, they’ll go after the boy.”

Grunts of disgust echoed around the room.

“I think I might know where to look.”

All four Horsemen turned to Francis Kendall. The bespectacled newspaperman tapped a spot on the map spread across the table.

“A contact at the depot reported that a private car owned by the Harbinger Land Development Company arrived on the northbound train out of San Marcos late this morning. He didn’t see a woman, but he mentioned a fair-haired man with a distinctive mustache who oversaw the decoupling of the car and gave instructions for its storage in the train yard. The man seems to match the description of Mr. Mullins.” Kendall looked at each Horseman in turn, then focused on Luke. “The blond man left word that he expected to need the railcar again first thing in the morning.”

Luke had known the timeline was short, but hearing it confirmed tightened a screw into the wall of his chest.

“One of the stable boys at Owen’s Livery came ’round when he learned I was looking for a woman who might be in trouble. He reported seeing a man and a woman at the livery midmorning. The man had dark coloring and hard eyes with a manner that made the boy nervous. The woman seemed . . . limp. As if she’d crumple to the ground if her escort removed his arm from around her middle. The man claimed she’d drunk herself into a stupor after learning of her brother’s sudden death, but my young friend smelled no alcohol on her when he helped get her into the closed buggy they rented. He didn’t remember much about her except that she wore a blue dress.”

“That’s her!” Luke grabbed the edge of the table. “It’s got to be her.” But what had they done to incapacitate her to such a degree? He pinned Kendall with a stare. “Did the kid know where they were headed?”

Kendall shook his head. “All he could tell me was that they headed west on Fifth Street.”

“But you said you knew where we should look.” Luke’s voice rose in volume. Matt placed a hand on his shoulder, but Luke shrugged it off. He didn’t want to be calm. He wanted to find Damaris!

Unperturbed by the demanding giant hulking over him, Kendall pulled a sheet of paper from a messy pile on the far side of the table. “I made a list of all properties in the area owned by Harbinger or one of their executives. Most are warehouses or vacant lots purchased for some form of speculation or another. But there are two private residences. One is in town and therefore ill-equipped for hiding criminal activity. The other, however, is a hunting cabin owned by one of the New York investors. It’s secluded. Nestled in the hills northwest of town. I initially thought it too far away to be of much use, but that was before I understood the intentions of the parties involved.” He glanced up at Luke. Compassion softened the confidence radiating from his gaze. “If one was looking for a place to dispose of . . . evidence . . . this cabin would be the place to go.”

Matt squeezed Luke’s shoulder, then slapped him on the back hard enough to dislodge the mental image of Damaris’s body being thrown into a shallow, unmarked grave.

“Saddle up, men.” The captain’s voice echoed with the clang of steel. “We’ve got a woman to save.”

CHAPTER

THIRTY-EIGHT

Mr. Mullins offered Damaris his arm as if he were a gentleman asking her to dance rather than a villainous reprobate demanding to steal land from an orphan. She ignored the offer and stepped past her captor, holding her head high even as she wove unsteadily thanks to the lingering effects of the ether. She clung to the back of the brocade sofa for balance as she made her way around the sitting area positioned near the hearth. Then, on her own, she crossed to the small table and chairs at the back of the room near the cookstove.

A dark figure standing at the window by the front door separated himself from the hunter-green curtain, drawing Damaris’s attention. Colburn.

“’Bout time you woke up.” The sneer in his voice and the hardness in his eyes sent a chill down her nape.