Relic (8 page)

“No one even acknowledges the possibility that anyone else could be to blame.”

“And we are partially responsible for this. Our actions have made us look guilty. It is something I wish Kuruk and his men would understand.”

A dark thought came to me. “But while everyone is busy blaming the Apaches, the real villains walk free.”

Yahn nodded grimly. “No one is safe until we find out who is truly responsible and stop them.”

“But how do we do that?”

He shook his head.

“You were there the night my home burned,” I insisted. “You must have seen something.”

“Only the shadows of men. Nothing more.”

I had no clues. No leads. The men could be anyone. Anywhere.

The scuff of Sheriff Leander’s boots startled me like a shot. I wasn’t ready; there was still so much more I needed to know. I grabbed the bars of the cell. “Yahn.”

He gazed at me, helpless.

“Time’s up, Miss Davis,” Sheriff Leander said. He folded his arms across his chest, eyeing Yahn warily.

“I need a few more minutes, sir.”

“Sorry, Maggie. It was a stretch to let you talk at all. These men are set to hang soon as we get the judge from Durango.”

The words slammed against my chest, knocking the air from my lungs. “Hang?”

I looked to Yahn. He wasn’t shocked. He met my gaze stoically, with maybe the slightest tinge of sadness. But for me, the room was spinning.

“No. No! You can’t!”

“Miss Davis—”

“He’s innocent! He had nothing to do with the burnings! He saved my life!”

Sheriff Leander had me by the arm. “You need to leave now.”

“Let go of me!” I wrenched free and ran to Yahn. “They can’t do this!”

“Miss Davis, I don’t want to have to charge you for disorderly conduct.”

Yahn closed his hand over mine. He shot a look at Sheriff Leander, then leaned close, speaking in a soft voice. “Go to the ruins of Haydenville. To your home. There must be proof there that my people are innocent.”

Sheriff Leander grabbed my arm with force. “That’s enough.” His brow bent with anger as he dragged me down the corridor. “You crossed the line. And I was doing you a favor.”

“You’re not doing anyone a favor by hanging the wrong men.”

“That’s for the judge to decide.”

The sheriff walked me all the way to the door before releasing his grip. He studied me with narrowed eyes. He was angry, yes, but he also looked concerned. “These are dangerous times, Miss Davis. I have the feeling this town is headed for big trouble, and I don’t mean a razing. My advice to you is to stop poking around the rattler’s nest. Keep to your work and stay away from trouble.”

I struggled to appear calm in spite of the roiling emotions inside me. “Good evening, Sheriff. I apologize if I caused you any distress.”

He gave me the same look Papa used to when I went riding on our horse Dusty alone. Perhaps Sheriff Leander wished I
were
his daughter, who he could order to stay at home and be safe. But I wasn’t, and he couldn’t. He may have thought it best that I kept my head down and stayed out of the way, but I knew differently. Yahn was right. As long as every lawman and vigilante in this town was focused on the Apaches, the
real
villains behind the burnings would be free to plan their next attack. I wasn’t going to let that happen.

“Good night,” I said again.

I stepped out into the moon-bathed street, heading back to The Desert Rose. Sheriff Leander stood in the lit doorway, a dark outline watching me. I couldn’t tell if he would be my friend or foe in all of this, but it didn’t much matter. I had made up my mind.

As I approached the window of my room to sneak in again, I spotted the shadowy figure of a man leaning against the wall. His horse pawed a hoof in the dust near my window. I froze in place, but it was too late. I’d been noticed.

Landon pushed back his hat. “Maggie.”

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“Looking for you. You plumb vanished after the sheriff showed up.” A smirk crept onto his face. “Where’d you sneak off to so late?”

“That’s none of your business,” I said, tugging my shawl closer.

He laughed. “I wondered if there wasn’t a little devil inside you, waiting to come out.”

“It’s nothing like that.” I wasn’t in the mood for his teasing. I had too much on my mind.

“Easy now. I only came to talk. That is, if you’re finished with all your midnight shenanigans.”

I strode past him haughtily. “If you’re finished, I believe I’ll go back to my room now.”

He caught me by the arm. “Aw, don’t be mad.” Our faces were close. Too close. I struggled to get a grip of myself.

Mama hadn’t taught me much in the way of courting and accepting suitors; scraping out a living in the desert soil had taken all of our time. My experience with boys my age had been limited to a few clumsy two-steps at the various barn dances and spring flings or an occasional walk home from Sunday lessons. Jake DeMint had taken me for a ride to see his pa’s new twin colts once, and I’d sat next to Harvey Bjornson at the talent show. All innocent moments between a boy and girl. But the way Landon looked at me was something else entirely. One part of me demanded I do whatever it took to discourage the advances of a boy like him. The other part of me…

Heat pulsed on the back of my neck. I looked away, determined not to let Landon see me blush.

“I can’t figure you out,” he said softly. “Sometimes you seem to want nothing to do with me, but then…the first time I met you…I saw a tiny glimpse behind that hard shell you wear.”

I couldn’t understand him, either. Was Landon really the roguish, flirting cowboy or the young man who searched for his dead mother in the stars? And would my heart be broken by the time I figured him out?

“I’m going now,” I said, gently breaking away from his grip.

Landon let me go but stayed by my window, leaning against the wall. “I’ve been waiting here so long because I want to call on you tomorrow.”

“You want to call on me?”

He nodded, smiling. I realized I must have sounded rather shocked and pleased, so I turned away. “I can’t.”

“Tomorrow is your day off, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but I’ve already made plans.”

“With that secret beau you’ve been sneaking off to see?”

“No!” I saw the laugh in his eyes and grimaced. “No. I have something very important to do. That’s all you need know.”

Why was I refusing him? If I knew the
real
Landon would call on me, I did want to see him again. I scraped for words, something, anything to fill the pulsing silence. And then Landon reached for my shawl, which had slipped down on one side, and pulled it up around my shoulder. His hand lingered there. His fingers brushed through my hair for the smallest moment, just long enough to send a ripple of heat through me.

“Let me spend one day with you,” he said softly. “Please?”

I exhaled a trembling breath. “All right.”

“It’s settled, then.” Landon smiled. “I’ll come by around nine.”

He climbed on Titan’s back. His gaze swept my face, and a smile pulled at his mouth. He tipped his hat. “Ma’am.”

Chapter Nine

Landon arrived exactly on time. He’d combed his hair in a neat part. He wore his whitest shirt. And as he helped me into the front seat of his wagon, I smelled the spicy scent of nickel cologne from the general store.

I blushed, wishing dearly I hadn’t worn my new dress, which the dancers’ seamstress at The Desert Rose had sewn for me under Mr. Connelly’s command. Apparently he was tired of seeing me walk around in “that darn ugly potato sack.”

The new dress was a beautiful dark-wine color, and it fit the way a garment should, but the seamstress had cut the neckline in a deep square, and it certainly wasn’t a dress I’d feel comfortable speaking to the pastor in. That was Mama’s gauge for modesty. I swore I’d never wear the thing. I didn’t need to offer those buzzards at the saloon another inch of my flesh to ogle.

And yet there I sat beside Landon, offering a fine display of myself. What on earth had possessed me to even think to put it on? But then Landon lashed the reins, and we lurched off at a fast clip.

As we rode along, the hot desert wind rushing past us, I remembered I had bigger things to worry about. Like how I was going to tell Ella that I wouldn’t be spending my day with her. It was bad enough I could only visit once a week, and I knew how lonely she was at the mission. It broke my heart. But I simply didn’t see how she could possibly be ready to go back to Haydenville.
I
wasn’t even ready.

As I expected, Ella didn’t take my abandonment too kindly. When I told her I was visiting Haydenville and she couldn’t come along, she stared at me with a look of utter betrayal. Tears welled up in her eyes, and she ran off to fling herself on her bed. I tried to reason with her, but she wouldn’t speak. Even when Landon made a joke, she only sniffled and shook her head. Just when I thought she and I were making progress, she seemed as heartbroken as she’d ever been.

I left the mission hurt and frustrated—not the best way to begin what would likely be an emotionally taxing afternoon. As we drew closer to the red-rock cliffs, my palms started sweating, and my head beat with dizziness. What would it feel like to walk on the charred ruins of my home? To know I could be stepping on the very place Mama or Papa or Jeb had died?

I was glad Ella had stayed back at the mission, safe from these memories. Mad at me or not, she shouldn’t have to face this. Not yet.

When we came within a dozen yards from my home, I put my hand on Landon’s arm. He pulled on the reins, bringing Titan to a stop.

“It’s right down that hill,” I said, staring at the sage-dotted red terrain, so familiar to me.

“You sure you want to do this?” Landon asked.

“No. But I have to.”

Landon climbed out of the wagon, then held his hand out to help me down. I said nothing, just started to walk in the direction of home. Landon followed a few steps behind. It was a walk I’d taken a hundred times, though now it felt like foreign soil. My feet were iron weights. Every step shot through me like pain.

As I came around a gnarled old bristlecone pine, I could see it.

The house where I was born, where I’d taken my first steps, ridden my first horse, and read my first book. The place I played cowboy warriors with my brothers and sister, where I’d baked tart apple pies with Mama and picked strawberries with Papa, sneaking bites of the tastiest ones. It was gone. A vast patch of burned black. Nothing remained, not even a piece of framing or foundation. Everything had been destroyed.

I walked for a bit over the ruins, my vision a blur of charred darkness. I didn’t know what I thought I’d find, and suddenly I wasn’t sure why I’d come at all. I wanted to run away, but my body was heavy like a stone. Overcome by the awful silence, I could only stare at the scorched earth.

Then a warm, gentle arm came around my shoulders. The gesture forced a few tears from my eyes, though I tried to gulp them back. Without a word, Landon pulled me softly against his chest. We stayed in the tender embrace for a long time.

After a while, he coaxed me to sit on a boulder in the shade of a nearby pine and offered me a sip from his canteen. “It’s awful,” he said softly as I drank.

I wiped my lips on the edge of my sleeve and handed him back the canteen.

He shook his head. “Never seen anything like it.”

The vastness of the destruction overwhelmed me. Nothing I’d read about compared to it. Not even the stories Papa would bring home from the Haydenville market during the Civil War days. They told of fire that burned groups of men, not entire towns.

I looked out at the ruins of my home. Whatever burned it clearly wasn’t simple dragon bones. Most folks around here could barely afford the smallest relics. Who could possibly have one that powerful?

Landon ran a hand through his hair, deep in thought. “It’s strange,” he said. “I thought the whole reason we were fightin’ those Apaches was because they don’t believe in digging up and using relics.”

“That is the reason,” I replied quietly.

“It doesn’t make sense.”

My pulse quickened. I knew I should tell him about Yahn. I should tell him the Apaches were innocent. Somehow in that moment, I knew he would believe me.

“Landon, there’s something you need to know.” I told him everything. About the night of the razing. About Yahn. About my conversation with him in the jail cell. When I had finished, Landon was quiet for a while, staring at the ground.

“If that’s true, then who burned Haydenville?”

“That’s why I had to come back here. I have to find out who’s
really
responsible before they strike again. Before they target Burning Mesa.”

Landon cast a long look out at the ruins of my home. He didn’t have to speak; I knew he agreed.

He shook his head. “Why Haydenville? Seemed like such a quiet little town.”

“It was. Mostly just farmers and miners.” I scraped a toe in the sand, trying to put the vague pieces together in my mind. “We did have a spot of trouble about a year ago. A rival company of miners wanted to excavate our red-rock. They tried to sabotage the Haydenville miners. Lured a pack of ghost coyotes into their camp at night with fresh horse meat. My papa said twelve men were killed.”

“Did they use fire relics?” Landon asked.

“I don’t think so, but that doesn’t mean they couldn’t in a different attack. Maybe they came back to finish them off.” Thoughts came rapidly. “Maybe that Mr. Bolger person is behind it.”

Landon frowned. “Who?”

“Emerson Bolger. He’s some kind of relic tycoon. Smits says he owns half the mining companies in the Territory.”

“And?”

“Maybe he wanted the rights to our mining area, and when he couldn’t get it, he used stronger force.”

“And burned the entire town, killing dozens of innocent men and women in the process?”

“Maybe.”

Landon sighed. “I don’t know, Maggie.”

We fell silent, both knowing it was a far-fetched idea. I stared out at the black smudge of ruin before us, feeling spent.

After a long pause, Landon spoke. “You know, now that I think of it, this fire reminds me of a bank robbery I saw in Durango last year.” His gaze was far away. “You ever heard of the Chimera Gang?”

A cold shiver crawled over me. “Who hasn’t?”

As soon as I spoke the words, the possibility in Landon’s suggestion struck me like a rod. The Chimera Gang was the largest, most ruthless group of bandits, drifters, and outlaws in the entire Territory. Feared by the innocent. Hunted in vain by the authorities. They got their start robbing a train transporting a rare full chimera skeleton to the National Relic Depository in Washington. Needless to say, the attack went well for them. And since that day, with the chimera magic giving them the power to breathe fire, they had become the terror of the West. Exactly the kind of people who would burn an entire town.

“I can’t believe I hadn’t thought of them before,” I said. I exhaled as snippets of stories and whispered rumors about the Chimera Gang swirled in my head. “It makes perfect sense!”

A grin pulled at his lips. “I can be useful from time to time.”

“I suppose you can,” I said, nudging him lightly with my shoulder. He chuckled, and in that moment, I had the strongest desire to kiss him. I contained the urge, figuring it was probably just the relief talking. No need to get carried away.

A strange cry suddenly echoed over the open desert. It was throaty and harsh, the sound of a wild animal. I jumped to my feet.

“Did you hear that?”

“It came from the cliffs,” Landon said, standing, his pistols already out.

I stuck close to his side, my heart racing. “I think I know that call.”

The growl came again, this time accompanied by the high whinny of a horse. And then a human scream. The sound cut through my body like a spear. I knew that voice.

It was Ella.