Years ago.
Perhaps in Cheyenne.
Perhaps from a cattle buyer.
He couldn’t place it.
“What happened to him?” Daniel asked.
Emily looked down.
“I don’t know.”
That answer brought Daniel fully upright.
“You don’t know?”
“He disappeared.”
The wind moaned around the corner of the cabin.
Emily’s hands began trembling.
“We lived outside Independence, Missouri. Charles owned a freight company. At least, that’s what he told me.”
“Told you?”
“I was nineteen when I married him.”
Her voice grew smaller.
“My parents had died during a fever outbreak. I had no brothers. No money. Charles was twelve years older. Charming. Well dressed. Everyone told me I was fortunate.”
Daniel had lived long enough to understand that the phrase everyone said she was fortunate rarely preceded a fortunate story.
Emily stared at the blanket.
“The first months were good. Then he began traveling more. Men came to the house at night. Strange men. Armed men.”
Daniel’s jaw tightened.
“He told me never to ask questions.”
Emily gave a broken laugh.
“I asked questions.”
“And?”
“He hit me.”
Daniel’s fingers closed around the chair arm.
He did not speak.
He was afraid of what his voice might sound like.
Emily continued.
“The first time, he apologized for two days. Bought me a necklace. Flowers. He cried harder than I did.”
Her expression became distant.
“The second time, he didn’t apologize.”
Daniel stared into the fire.
He suddenly understood her habit of watching doors.
Her nervousness around raised voices.
The way she startled whenever someone approached from behind.
“Emily…”
“There’s more.”
Of course there was.
Daniel felt it before she spoke.
Emily reached beneath her pillow.
For one wild instant, Daniel thought she might produce a weapon.
Instead, she pulled out a folded piece of yellowed paper.
She held it toward him.
Daniel crossed the room slowly and took it.
The paper was worn along the creases, as though it had been opened and closed a hundred times.
Across the top was the faded seal of the United States Marshal Service.
Daniel read.
His stomach tightened.
Charles Vane.
Wanted for robbery, murder, trafficking stolen military supplies, and conspiracy connected to a series of stagecoach attacks across Missouri and Kansas.
A reward of five thousand dollars.
Daniel looked up.
Emily’s eyes filled again.
“I discovered the notice hidden among his papers.”
“When?”
“Three months after he hit me the second time.”
“What did you do?”
“I planned to leave.”
Daniel already knew from her expression that she had not simply packed a bag and walked away.
“Charles found out.”
Emily’s breath caught.
“He locked me inside the cellar for two days.”
Daniel closed his eyes briefly.
A dangerous anger rose inside him, cold rather than hot.
The kind of anger he feared most.
When he opened his eyes again, Emily was watching him.
“He said if I ever tried to leave again, he’d kill me. And if anyone helped me, he’d kill them too.”
Daniel looked at the wanted notice.
“How did you escape?”
Emily hesitated.
Then she said, “Charles was shot.”
Daniel looked up sharply.
“He came home wounded one night. There had been a robbery near St. Joseph. He was bleeding badly. Two of his men carried him inside.”
Her hands tightened.
“I heard them say a marshal had been killed.”
Daniel’s eyes narrowed.
“Charles had killed him?”
“I think so.”
