Read Online The Man from Stone Creek by Linda Lael Miller - Free Book Online

always with a bit of blood-soaked cloth attached.”
    Bile rose in the back of Sam’s throat. He’d seen the signature several times, and just the recollection of it turned his stomach. He nodded, took another moment before he spoke. “I suppose you’ve considered that it might be the Donaghers,” he said. That was Major Black-stone’s theory, and, since his conversation with Terran Chancelor that afternoon, regarding the Debney shooting, the possibility had stuck in his mind like a burr.
    A muscle bunched in Vierra’s jaw. “Sí,” he said. “But there is no proof.”
    Sam waited.
    â€œThe patrons who hired me, they want the right men. No mistakes,” Vierra went on. “And I do not have the option, as you do, of shooting them through the heart and bringing them in draped over their saddles. The patrons want them alive. The streets of a certain village, a day or two south of here, will run with their blood.”
    A chill trickled down Sam’s spine. He had no love for these murdering bastards, and would just as soon draw on them as take his next breath, but the law was the law. Unless one or more of them forced his hand, they would stand trial, in an American court, their fate decided by a judge and jury. He didn’t give a damn what happened to them after that, but by God, he’d get them that far, whether Vierra got in his way or not. “I guess it all depends on who catches up to them first,” he said moderately.
    Both men rose to their feet. Vierra surrendered the map he’d brought with him. “There is a train making its way north in ten days,” he said. “I have told a few people that there will be a fortune in oro federale aboard. We will see if the rumor reaches the right ears.”
    Federal gold, Sam reflected. Cheese in a mousetrap.
    â€œAnd you’ve got a pretty good idea where they’ll try to intercept the train,” he ventured, recalling Vierra’s map in perfect detail. “That railroad trestle downriver from here.”
    Vierra smiled. “I am impressed,” he said. “The new schoolmaster has paid attention to the lesson.”

CHAPTER
FOUR
    â€œY OU WANT ME to do what? ” Maddie gaped at Sam O’Ballivan’s copper bathtub, ensconced squarely in front of the schoolhouse stove. Terran had left the store early that morning, of his own volition, and she’d barely recovered from her brother’s change of heart when back he came, breathless from running all the way.
    â€œMr. O’Ballivan says to come quick, if you wouldn’t mind!” he’d cried.
    Maddie had frowned, concerned. Elias James, the town banker and, for all practical intents and purposes, her employer, since he oversaw Mungo’s investments, expected the mercantile door to be unlocked by nine o’clock sharp, and in the six years she’d been running the general store, she’d never failed to do that. It was now eight forty-five. “Is there some emergency?” she’d asked, already untying the apron strings she’d just tied a moment before.
    â€œHe says it’s important,” Terran had insisted.
    And here she was, standing in the schoolhouse, staring in consternation at Sam O’Ballivan and the bathtub she’d sold him herself.
    â€œI want you,” Sam repeated patiently, “to show Violet Perkins how to take a bath.”
    Maddie knew Violet, of course, and had sympathy for her. The poor child hung around the store sometimes, when school was out, hoping for a hard-boiled egg from the crock next to the counter, or a piece of penny candy. She mooned over the few ready-made dresses Maddie carried—most women sewed their children’s garments at home, as well as their own—and huddled by the stove for hours when it was cold or rainy outside. Maddie often indulged her with a plate of leftovers from her own larder at the rear of the store, pretending