No Other Will Do (Ladies of Harper's Station #1)(82)

Tugging dangling hairpins free as she went, she dashed up the stairs, careful to keep her tread light so as not to wake the aunts. Henry was usually up with the sun, but she’d taken a shift on watch last night and would probably sleep another hour. Bertie rarely rose before seven.

Emma started finger-combing her matted hair as she moved into her room and gently closed the door. Stepping to the window, she took hold of the curtains, intending to close them so she could disrobe, but a movement near the garden grabbed her attention.

The ladies didn’t work the garden on Sundays. Although, if Mrs. Grimes decided she needed something fresh to serve the circuit-riding preacher after services, she could have sent Flora or Esther to gather a few things. But the woman in the garden wasn’t gathering vegetables. In fact, she didn’t look to be moving much at all. Until Malachi came down from the steeple and passed by. Then she bent over the rows of plants and started harvesting, or pretending to. She positioned her back to him so he wouldn’t be able to see her face. Not that he gave her more than a cursory glance since Porter had come up at the same time and said something to him while pointing back to the boardinghouse. Mal nodded and followed the freighter into the heart of town. Leaving the woman to her own devices.

Emma pressed her forehead to the window glass, trying to make out the woman’s features. Who was it? She squinted through the glass, but the garden was too far away to make out more than the woman’s outline. And her movements. No sooner had the men turned their backs than the woman sprinted through the gate and behind the church. Was she heading for the river?

Emma gasped and lunged for her door. She pounded down the stairs.

She had to catch her. Had to stop her from endangering the town. For she must be headed back to the outlaws, otherwise she would have taken Emma up on her offer of money and a fresh start.

“Emma?” Henry sleepily called to her from upstairs, but Emma didn’t have time to explain.

“Get Malachi,” Emma yelled back to her aunt, her pace not slowing. “Tell him I spotted the traitor running toward the river.”

Emma grabbed her rifle from where she’d propped it against the parlor wall last night and raced out the back door.

“You can’t—”

The door slammed, cutting off her aunt’s protest.

Yes, she could. She had to. She had to protect her ladies. Besides, Mal would come for her. She’d not be alone for long. And this time she was armed.

Emma dashed through the corral, mentally railing at the time lost by having to climb through the fence slats. But when she caught a glimpse of a woman in a dark coat disappearing down the slope leading to the river, she found a new burst of energy. She ran across the field that stretched between her and the church, then cut across open country to the place where the woman had disappeared.

She crested the hill. Glanced right and left. Panic stabbed her gut. Her ragged breaths echoed loudly in her ears. Where was the woman? To the west, the river stretched fairly straight, but there was a bend to the right. Surely her quarry must have gone east around the bend. Otherwise she would still be visible. Praying she was right, Emma set out to the east, and before long, ran across a fresh set of footprints leading into the river. Small. Pointed toes. A woman’s shoes. Triumph surged through Emma. She couldn’t be too far behind.

Holding her rifle in one hand, she gathered up her skirts with the other and waded into the shallow river. Water ran over her ankles and halfway up her calves, dousing her stockings and the edges of her petticoats. She trudged on, doing her best to watch her footing even as she scoured the far shore for a glimpse of the lady she chased. No sign.

The traitor must be rounding the bend while wading in the water to hide her tracks. But Emma didn’t want her tracks to be hidden. She needed Malachi to find them quickly. The woman she followed had to come out on the other side eventually. Emma could make better time, not to mention leave more visible tracks if she crossed the river directly. She eyed the far side of the river and found a sloping section of bank that would provide an easy exit. So she headed for it, pushing through knee-deep water in order to get there.

Once on the other side, she released her skirts, grabbed a quick couple of breaths to relieve her heaving sides, then forced herself into a slow jog along the river’s edge, her gaze constantly swiveling between the river and the bushy mesquite to her left.

The bend in the river finally ceased its curving and began to straighten. Yet the improved view yielded no sign of Emma’s quarry. Where had she left the river? Emma had seen no footprints. No trail of water droplets or flattened prairie grass from dragging hems near the river’s edge.

Emma bit her lip. She couldn’t lose the trail. Not now. Not when she was so close. She glanced toward the scrub brush but saw nothing. Heard nothing.

Frustration mounting, she jogged forward until she reached a pile of dead branches beneath a small cedar tree. Her attention was so focused on trying to spot her quarry that she didn’t lift her back foot enough to clear the branches as she stepped over them. The toe of her shoe caught on something hard and immobile, nearly launching her onto her face.

Emma caught her balance and glared down at whatever had tripped her. Her eyes widened. A flat brown stone, almost completely hidden, lay beneath the leaves and twigs. A stone that had a dark spot in the middle. A wet spot.

Exhilaration shot through her. She looked for more stones hidden inside the camouflage of dead branches and found several, all about a man’s stride apart. The branches and leaves meandered up the flat bank in a seemingly haphazard manner to a rocky section of ground where a trail would be next to impossible to find. No wonder Malachi hadn’t been able to track the outlaws. They’d disguised their escape route perfectly. If she hadn’t stubbed her toe, she would have completely passed it by without a second thought.