Lucas brightened at first, obviously remembering the man, but suspicion immediately darkened his face.“He didn’t show you the way out here, did he?”
“I asked him, but he wouldn’t say.”
“I didn’t think so.”A smile tugged on his mouth.“But I don’t know why I’m complaining.If it weren’t for you gunning us out of this, that sheriff would have killed me and my mother, and Doc too.There wouldn’t have been no trial and no hanging.”
“I’m still waiting.”
“I’ll tell you everything,” Lucas replied.“But don’t forget, you promised only to take me in.”
He scoffed.“I ain’t made no promises.”
“I know.But a man can hope.”
Caleb took notice of the sadness in the way he said the words.Lucas was begging for his mother’s life.The young outlaw looked again at the light spilling out of the shack before turning to Caleb.
“The preacher told you something of my pa?”
“Said he was a brave fella who ran into trouble with some Wells Fargo men out in the gold fields.”
“And did he tell you that he took his wife and children with him out to Montana?”
“He said nothing about family.”
“Well, it was four of us children out there.And it wasn’t just prospecting, though he did that too.He bought himself some land for a ranch and sent for Ma and us to go out there right after he was settled.”
The muscles in the young man’s jaw tightened as he tried to keep a hold on his emotions.
“When those Wells Fargo agents came out to the ranch, it was the middle of the night, and they came with a gang of gunmen carrying torches.My pa and my brother were shot down before a word was spoken.I was only twelve then.But what we never talk about outside of family is that my two younger sisters died that night too.”
Caleb felt sick, not wanting to imagine what might have happened.Whatever it was, the husband and three children belonging to the woman in that shack had been murdered.
“After killing my father and brother, them animals went after the rest of us.They couldn’t find us.My ma and me were out in the fields beyond the barn.My sisters must’ve gone to hide in the root cellar.When the bastards set fire to the house, me and my ma couldn’t get my sisters out.”
Lucas covered his eyes with his hand, and Caleb looked away.He knew what it was like to lose everyone you care for overnight.But he locked down his own childhood memories, burying them deep in the back of his mind.
There were some losses no man could speak over.Caleb let the silence stand.
The sighing of the evergreens in the soft night wind and the crackle of the fire were the only sounds, and he doubted they offered much comfort.No words could soothe a grief like that.
They sat in silence for a few moments.Finally, the high-pitched yelp of a coyote close by in the hills came to them, and then the distant answering note of a trailing mate.It roused Caleb, and he stood up.
“I got things to do,” he said.
“Tell me what I can do to help,” Lucas replied.
“You can wait inside with Doc.”
The two of them went to the door of the shack.Doc turned his head to them.He was working on the woman’s shoulder, and Sheila was holding the lamp for him.
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.
