Chapter 21 #3
Though terrified she had to ask. “Where is he?” she managed, slightly amazed that her voice wasn’t quite as shaky as she feared. She’d known this day would come, and had been running from it for so long. Now it was here and it was time for her to face up to it.
“Where is who?” he asked.
She frowned. What kind of game was he playing? “You know who I’m talking about.”
He gestured over her shoulder. “You talkin’ ‘bout that sheriff you seem to be sweet on?” He laughed softly.
“Was kind of surprised to see him in town as the sheriff after all these years.” He paused and leaned forward, a forearm resting on the saddle horn.
The saddle squeaked as he shifted his weight and scowled.
“By the way, it was Everett who killed his daddy, not me, but it don’t seem to matter to him. He keeps lookin’.”
She stared at him. How would he know about Nathaniel’s continued search for the Blackwell gang?
How long had Silas been watching her? Watching the boarding house?
Had he been in town and no one noticed? She remembered the tingling sensation she got sometimes when at the cabin or near the trees.
Those times the crickets stopped their chirping or the birds grew silent for several moments.
She frowned. No, she wasn’t thinking about Nathaniel when she’d asked Silas the question, but now that he’d put the thought in her mind, she wondered if he knew she was missing by now, if he knew what she had intended, and whether he would come looking for her. Then again, why should he?
She barely managed to swallow, her fingers even tighter on the reins, hoping he didn’t see her fear, but figuring he did. She didn’t want his attention focused on Nathaniel, so she spoke the name out loud for the first time in years.
“Where’s Everett?” she finally managed to say his name.
To her dismay, Silas’s eyes widened as he gaped at her, then started to chuckle.
He tilted his head back and laughed, the sound sending yet another shiver down her spine.
Finally, he stopped, stared up at the sky for several moments, and then turned his eyes on her, dark and mean as his lips thinned into a sneer.
“You don’t know?”
She frowned. “Don’t know what?” She knew they would find her someday. Why had she thought she could outrun them or hide from Everett forever? From both of them? She’d been foolish—
“He’s dead.”
Confused, the words didn’t sink in right away.
The gang. The gang was still together. They were still riding, terrorizing others, robbing banks and …
then it dawned on her. Was Silas the leader now?
Was he the leader of the Blackwell gang?
She stared at him and he stared right back, his eyes boring into hers, angry and accusing.
Her heart skipped a beat or two before it began to pump again.
She’d been running from a ghost? “How … when…”
“He died ‘bout five years ago, Chloe,” Silas told her, no emotion in his voice. “Got hisself shot during a stagecoach robbery, lingered for a few days and then he died.”
Chloe could only stare. Everett had been dead all those years she’d been hiding up in the Dakotas?
That wasn’t possible! She’d read the Blackwell gang was in the area, news that had prompted her to come south looking for her daughter.
He’d been dead for years while Nathaniel had kept searching for him, determined to arrest the man who’d killed his father—
It struck her then. “And you’re the leader of the gang now?” she asked, horrified. Silas the man was nothing like the boy she used to know, her former best friend. Now he was a killer, a man who took what he wanted from others without a by your leave.
He sighed. “Was for a while. After all, not many people knew that Everett Kane’s bones have been layin’ in a cave in Oklahoma for years.” He offered a shrug. “Why upset the status quo?”
She stared at him, no longer recognizing anything about him that used to be familiar except his physical presence. Forever gone was the boy she used to play with and rely on, the one she had thought of as a brother for so many years.
“Don’t tell me you’re pinin’ for him,” Silas snarled. “You done lost that right the moment you betrayed us.”
Everett was gone. Everett was dead. Though she was still afraid of this Silas she didn’t know, that deep-in-the-gut, wrenching terror, had eased somewhat. She found the courage to look Silas in the eye. “I did the right thing.”
He glared, staring at her, or through her, she didn’t know which. “You going to kill me now, Silas?” She managed to ask. To her dismay, he merely grinned.
“Now why would I go and do that? After all that time Everett was lookin’ for you and after he died, I kept an ear out, figuring that sooner or later you’d hear about it and pop your head up out of the hole you been hidin’ in.
” He chuckled softly. “I’m not gonna kill you, Chloe, at least unless you give me cause to, but you do deserve to be punished for what you did.
After all, you betrayed me too, not just Everett. ”
She didn’t understand. If he didn’t plan to kill her, what did he plan to do? Then he spoke the words she last wanted to hear …
“Come along, Chloe, we got things to settle.”