The Bone Orchard (2 page)

“I suppose I am,” Ambrose said, gravel in his voice. “Where’d you hear that?”

“The telegraph wire. News reached the east two weeks ago; it was huge. I work for the Pinkerton Agency.” Ezra fumbled in his pocket for his badge and showed it to Ambrose. He’d heard about the steely-eyed western lawmen with their unflappable demeanors and six-guns strapped to their thighs, but he’d not been prepared to meet one. Or room with one. “I was brought in to testify against Jennings.”

“For the murder of the Irishman, right?” Ambrose nodded and tossed his saddlebags onto the delicate rocking chair in the corner. Dust rose around it.

“That’s correct, yes. I was told there was no one else to testify, that all the witnesses . . . But you tracked him across six states and two territories.”

“I did.” Ambrose grunted. “Man shot, strangled, beat, knifed, and poisoned victims all across the damn country, but I never could prove it was him.”

“But you were involved in a gunfight with him, were you not?”

“That’s what I’m told.”

“I’m sorry?”

“I don’t remember.” Ambrose gestured vaguely to himself and gave Ezra a crooked grin. “I certainly can’t testify to it.”

Ezra frowned in confusion, but nodded anyway, not wanting to appear inexperienced in front of the legendary marshal. “If you can’t testify, then why are you here?”

“To watch,” Ambrose growled. He glanced over his shoulder, his eyes catching the light from the hurricane lamp and glinting dangerously. “I came to see him hang.”

Ezra’s mouth was suddenly too dry for him to swallow. “I . . . I suppose that’s a good reason.”

Ambrose removed his hat and set it on top of the washbasin in front of the dainty mirror as he walked past. “You’re the prosecution’s golden bullet,” he told Ezra. They stood on either side of the bed, staring at each other. Ezra’s heart was beating harder than was healthy. Ambrose studied him from under lowered brows, his eyes magnetic, his jaw clenched. “Best not miss,” Ambrose said before turning and walking into the washroom.

Ezra put a hand to his heart and sat heavily. The bed squeaked beneath him. It wasn’t hot in here at all. In fact, he was shivering.

“God help my aim,” he whispered.

When Ezra awoke, it was to the chirp of birds outside the window, the creak of wagon wheels and shouts of merchants, and the gentle, husky breaths of the man sharing the room with him. Ezra sat up, rubbing his eyes as he reached for his spectacles.

Ambrose was sitting in the rocking chair in the corner, watching him.

“Good morning,” Ezra mumbled to the marshal. He received a grunt in return. “Did you sleep there?”

“I don’t sleep,” Ambrose told him. “Best get ready. I intend to see Boone Jennings hang today.”

Ezra swallowed hard, nodding as he fumbled out from under the bedcovers. He splashed tepid water from the washbasin on his face, shivering even in the heat of the summer morning. He glanced in the mirror at the rocking chair, but Ambrose had moved. The chair was still rocking, but the marshal was nowhere to be seen.

Ezra turned, eyes sweeping the room. How the hell had he done that? It must have been a western lawman thing, like an Indian in high grass. The marshal’s saddlebags were nowhere Ezra could see either. Ezra shrugged and proceeded to dress, muttering to himself about the heavy frock coat he would be forced to wear through the first day of the trial.

As if he wasn’t going to be sweating already as the only witness capable of putting Boone Jennings in his grave.

“You seem nervous,” Ambrose said, his gruff voice just inches away from Ezra’s back.

Ezra jumped and turned, wide-eyed and blinking. “I am now, thank you! Do you make noise when you move?”

Ambrose pursed his lips and frowned. “Not really.”

“Could you try?” Ezra snapped as he shrugged into his vest and wrapped his tie under his collar.

Ambrose’s lips were still pursed, but one eyebrow slowly raised, and he nodded as if giving the request real thought. “Sure.”

Ezra turned to fix his tie in the mirror. He glanced up, expecting to see the marshal’s reflection, but the man was gone again. Ezra rolled his eyes and returned his attention to his appearance once more.

Once he’d finished, they made their way downstairs, Ambrose falling in step with Ezra. Ezra was clutching his satchel with the evidence for the trial so tightly his fingers were beginning to ache.

“You okay?” Ambrose asked. For some reason, he seemed to be fighting a smile, as if he found such serious business as life and death amusing.

Ezra gave him a tense nod.

“Still nervous,” Ambrose observed.

“You’re not helping,” Ezra said through gritted teeth.

“Sorry.”

Ezra gave him a sideways glare, then glanced toward the desk and offered the attendant a pleasant smile. “Good morning.”

“G-good morning, sir.” The man gave Ezra an odd, questioning look. What western custom had he violated now? “Is your room to your satisfaction?”

“It is, thank you.”

Ezra gave him a second glance as they walked past, then looked Ambrose up and down. “A little haughty of him not to speak to you.”

“I get that a lot,” Ambrose said with a shrug. He waved a hand at himself. “Folks don’t speak to the likes of me.”

“Really?” Ezra almost tripped over the doorway when they reached it. He turned and pushed the large wooden door open, holding it to let Ambrose walk out into the bright sunshine before following him. “Do people not recognize you as the law?”

Ambrose turned and squinted at him, his silver eyes sparkling in the sunlight. He laughed and headed off down the sidewalk. “That must be it,” he said over his shoulder.

Ezra stared after him, frowning for several moments before hurrying to follow.

The trial itself had drawn quite a crowd of onlookers, and though Ambrose seemed to have no trouble slipping through the rabble of curiosity seekers, journalists, and possible vigilantes standing outside the building shouting for Jennings’s head, Ezra could barely squeeze by.

He was jostled and pushed, and he held closer to his satchel of evidence. A hand reached out of the crowd and gripped his shoulder. Shivers wracked his entire body, and he closed his eyes against the inexplicable chill. But it was only Ambrose, who dragged him through the crowd, holding tightly to him as people complained and were shoved out of the way. Ezra tried to offer apologies, but he was hustled along too quickly.

He headed up the steps of the Palace Hotel, glancing sideways at Ambrose with a disapproving scowl. “That was quite rude. Do you make it a habit of dragging people along by their collars?”

“No, I usually use shackles.” Ambrose hooked his hand in his belt, tapping the butt of his gun with his index finger as he sauntered toward the doors.

“Please never do that again!”

“Sorry, did you want time to go put your bustle on?” Ambrose stopped at the doors to the hotel, turning to cock his head at Ezra and raise an eyebrow. His manner was still gruff and imposing, but his oddly silver eyes shone like he was amused.

Ezra was still clutching his satchel to his chest with both hands. He glanced down at the crowd, who were being held back by wooden barriers and two overwhelmed constables. Ezra straightened his shoulders and raised his head, jutting out his chin. “This is a more rowdy environment than I’m accustomed to,” he admitted. “Thank you for your assistance.”

Ambrose nodded, then reached out and fixed Ezra’s collar, which had gone askew. He patted Ezra on the shoulder, knocking him sideways. Then he stood waiting for Ezra to get the door.

Ezra couldn’t help but laugh as he pulled the heavy wooden door open and gestured for Ambrose to enter first. “For a big tough western lawman, you sure do have some feminine sensibilities,” he said as he followed Ambrose in.

Ambrose merely laughed as he led the way to the courtroom.

They seated themselves on the left side of the room, in the only empty spaces in the very back row. The room was packed, and the heat was almost as oppressive as the tension in the room. When the side door shoved open and “Missouri” Boone Jennings shuffled in, chains rattling, two armed US Marshals following him, the room fell silent and still.

Jennings was dressed in a suit, his long hair slicked back and tied at his neck, his left arm in a cotton sling. He was clean-shaven and rather handsome—not at all the dirty, disheveled outlaw Ezra had been expecting.

A low hum started in the back of Ambrose’s throat, and Ezra glanced at him worriedly. Ambrose’s sharp eyes had gone cold, his shoulders tense. The mere presence of the murderer in the courtroom had caused all movement to cease, the temperature dropping by some trick of the mind. The man at Ezra’s side shivered.

The loudest sound in the room, other than the clanking of Jennings’s chains, was Ambrose growling.

Ezra patted his arm. “Be calm,” he whispered.

The man on his other side chuckled. “Ain’t nothing to be calm over, not being in the same room as that snake.”

An hour later, Ezra was called to take the witness stand. He carried his satchel up and placed it on the floor beside the chair.

“State your name and occupation for the record, please,” the judge requested.

“My name is Ezra Johns, of New York City. I’m a special investigator for the Pinkerton Agency.”

“How do you know Boone Jennings?”

Ezra took a deep breath, then described in detail the vicious assault he’d investigated a year ago. He pushed his satchel toward the prosecuting attorney. “All the evidence I collected is in there, including witness statements authorized by the district court of New York State.”

“Is there any doubt in your mind that Boone Jennings was the perpetrator of that murder?”

“There is none. He fled New York by rail, heading west to Chicago and then St. Louis. The US Marshals were brought in to track him down.” Ezra’s eyes strayed to the back of the room, where Ambrose sat, silent and stoic, his face enveloped in shadow.

The prosecuting attorney nodded, then retrieved a stack of telegrams from his table. He handed them to Ezra. “Can you tell us what these are?”

Ezra flipped through them. “These appear to be telegrams sent by Marshal Ambrose Shaw.” He glanced up at Ambrose again. The man had tracked Jennings clear across the country, sending out a telegram every time he found another body. A chill ran through Ezra. No wonder Ambrose was so invested in this trial.

“Can you find the last three, please, and read them for the court?”

Ezra nodded and paged through them, coming to the final telegrams. He cleared his throat. “Silver City. Victim thirteen years old,” he read, struggling with the telegram’s shorthand. He paused and glanced up, blowing out a breath of nerves. “Eighteen men, women, and children now in the orchard. Believe Jennings heading for California. Watch the ports.”

“Those are the words of Marshal Shaw,” the prosecutor said quietly. “The last telegram was sent from right here in San Francisco, a fortnight ago. Please read it, Inspector Johns.”

Ezra nodded, swallowing hard. He didn’t understand why they were having him read the telegrams with Ambrose sitting right there. The marshal would make a much more effective witness with his gruff drawl and haunting silver eyes.

He held the final telegram up. “Jennings in San Fran. I do not aim to let him leave. I bury him here, or they try him for . . . for my murder.”

The finality of those words echoed through the rapt courtroom, and Ezra shivered. He raised his head, staring at Ambrose with his lips parted in shock.

“This was a hardened US Marshal,” the prosecutor was saying to the judge and jury. “A man who saw war, a man who tracked murderers and thieves over deserts and mountains. The atrocities he witnessed in the aftermath of Boone Jennings’s wake drove him to forgo the due process of the law he had upheld all his life, to risk his life to take Boone Jennings off the face of this earth so no one else could be hurt by him.”

Ezra’s mouth went dry as he stared out at Ambrose, trying to imagine what would drive the man to such action.

The prosecutor stopped pacing, his hands behind his back as he stood before the jury with a grim set to his jaw. “Marshal Ambrose Shaw died of his wounds the same night he confronted Boone Jennings. He gave his life to bring this man to justice, to end his reign of terror. You the jury must be just as brave in your convictions as Marshal Shaw was in his.”