Chapter 36 #2
In that lamplight, with her sleeves pushed back and her face pale with exhaustion, Sheila looked steadier than any woman had a right to after a few days like she’d had. Caleb found himself watching her a beat too long.
“I’m leaving him here.” Caleb motioned to the young man. “Do you want me to tie him?”
“Don’t need to. Leave him be,” Doc told him. “I know he won’t go anywhere, nor will he do us any harm. He and his mother are the last two left of his family. He won’t do anything to hurt her chances.”
“I’ll sit over here, Doc,” Lucas said, going to a barrel by the stove. “Out of your way.”
Caleb carried his rifle and crossed the open space to walk down the trail. It was very dark now, for the moon had set, but his eyes adjusted quickly. He climbed to the ledge where he’d see and hear anyone riding toward the camp.
He settled in and thought about what Lucas told him. He and his mother had embarked on a life built on avenging the loss of their family.
Caleb recalled something his own father liked to say: Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. Losing a father and brother and sisters is a heavy load for anyone to carry.
Vengeance.
Over the years, there were many times when Caleb thought about his father using those words…but the old man used them for the wrong reasons.
He didn’t want to think about that now. He almost never liked to think about it. One thing he knew, though—one thing he could never forget—when he was a young fella himself, vengeance drove him to do things that changed his life.
He had spent years wondering if justice and vengeance were the same thing. Sometimes they were. But sometimes a man only chose the word ‘justice’ that let him sleep at night.
The sky was brightening in the east when he saw Doc and Sheila come out of the shack.
Caleb went down the hill and followed the trail around to the camp.
By the time he reached the fire, Doc was sitting and stirring beans in a pot, and Sheila was dozing off near her father, a blanket wrapped around her.
Caleb joined them, sitting where he could watch for any visitors.
Doc looked at him and grumbled, “I’ve been in there so long, I forgot what the air smells like and what the sky looks like.”
“How are your patients?”
“The wound was festering, and I needed to excise more flesh inside. She didn’t die while I was cutting into the wound, so that’s a good thing. And the bullet is out of Lucas’s arm. I believe he’ll do just fine.”
“Are they awake?”
The doctor shook his head. “They’re sedated. They’ll be sleeping it off for a while. The longer, the better.”
“You think they’ll live?”
“Lucas will. But the mother…?” Doc paused and pondered his answer. “Time will tell. She’s struggling. But I’ve done all I can.”
Doc then told him everything that had happened. What he said about the killing of Smith supported what Lucas told Caleb. And Doc shared everything Horner told him about the rumors of the fortune as well as what Mrs. Fields had to say about it.
They lapsed into silence, a group of exhausted people, and Caleb thought about it all.
Then, as the dawn light broke over the mountains, his own past again edged into his mind. The hard things that happened to a family were not always the work of torch-bearing gunmen who rode up in the middle of the night.
There were secrets about Caleb’s life that no one knew. Things he’d done that were far worse than anything the sleeping mother and son in that shack had done. He ran a tired hand down his face, trying to make sense of the argument being waged between his brain and his gut.
Doc broke into his thoughts. “I see you’re wearing a tin star. So the judge asked you to come after us?”
Caleb glanced at Sheila. “Patterson and I struck a deal. But I would have come after you anyway.”
Sheila remained silent, her back straightening visibly.
Her blue eyes spit fire at him. He had no doubt that she was thinking of the night at his ranch.
She’d been right to worry about her father, and he was wrong.
But the argument was between the two of them, and there was no reason to get Doc involved.
He owed her an apology for that. Not here. Not now. But he owed it all the same.
“So what were the judge’s orders?” Doc asked.
Caleb nodded toward the shack. “He wants these stagecoach robberies to stop. Feels it’s giving Elkhorn an undesirable reputation. Of course, he wants the strongboxes back, and he’ll want those two to stand trial.”
“And you are prepared to give him everything he wants?”
Caleb looked steadily at his friend. Doc was not a very subtle fella. When they played chess, he would almost always come right at him. Caleb knew he didn’t give a damn about the first two things. He was asking about what would happen to his two patients.
Caleb pulled his hat off and ran a hand through his hair. He could make do without the reward money. But there was still the deal he’d made to get his partner out of jail. Without Henry Jordan joining him soon to run the ranch, there was not much point in sticking around Elkhorn.
And yet, for the first time in a long while, the thought of leaving did not sit as easily as it once had. Not with Sheila wrapped in a blanket by the fire, alive because she had refused to give up.
“Before I know the answer to that, Doc, I reckon there’s a question or two I’d like to ask Mrs. Fields.”