Suppertime came and the two women and the children joined the other boarders in the dining room. Jolie felt as though she were back in the schoolhouse, standing trial again, the way the landlady and her tenants kept stealing curious looks at her.

  The evening was only tolerable because Mary kept up a running patter, deliberately provoking an argument with the new schoolmaster by insisting that left-handed children should not be forced to use their right hands. After that, she proceeded to tell the circuit preacher, who was just passing through on his way to Fishtrap, that she didn’t see what Saint Paul could possibly have been thinking of when he decreed that women shouldn’t be allowed to speak in church.

  The snow was gone by nightfall, dissolved by the warmth of an autumn sun, and Jolie was restless. After she’d put the children down for the night, she went across the hall to ask Mary to look in on them while she took a short walk.

  Mary’s son and daughter were already sleeping, and she was reading by the light of a single kerosene lamp. She frowned. “Daniel and Enoch said we should stay right here,” she pointed out. “No matter what.”

  “I won’t be long,” Jolie pressed, desperate to breathe fresh air and have room to move her elbows freely, if only for a little while. “And I promise I won’t go far.”

  Mary shrugged and lowered her eyes to her book again as Jolie stepped back and closed the door.

  The air outside was almost springlike, and there were stars scattered across the sky like clear marbles on a carpet. Jolie kept her skirts from the mud as she made her way along the wooden sidewalk, enjoying the lights and inwardly keeping time to the bawdy music coming from the saloons.

  Ira January’s house looked as imposing as always, since it was the biggest place in town, but Jolie opened the gate and glided up the walk anyhow. It had been a while since she’d tried to call on Nan, and this seemed as fitting an occasion as any.

  Mounting the porch, grateful for the light of the fat candles burning in the brass lanterns affixed to either side of the door, Jolie gave the bell knob an authoritative twist. She waited, arms folded, tapping the toes of one foot, and then rang again.

  She was about to turn away, resigned to yet another defeat, when the door creaked open and Nan’s waxen face peered at her around the edge. Mrs. Culley’s manner was furtive, like that of a doe driven from some hiding place by hunger or thirst.

  “Come in,” she said, whispering the words, looking back over one shoulder as though she expected someone to stride up and countermand her words. “Hurry!”

  Nan clasped Jolie’s hand and pulled her into a darkened parlor, where heavy velvet drapes were pulled against the night. Only when the two women were huddled behind an ornate Oriental folding screen did Nan speak again.

  “Oh, Jolie,” she murmured raggedly, “you were right! I should never have come here … ”

  “That’s an easy problem to solve,” Jolie said, making no effort to keep her voice down. “We’ll simply leave, right this moment. I’m sure Mrs. Krayper could find a place for you, or perhaps Reverend and Mrs. Watman would take you in until we can decide what to do.”

  Nan was already shaking her head, her finger raised to her lips in a bid … no, a plea … for circumspection. “You don’t understand. He’d come after me. He’d drag me back here and it would be worse than if I’d never left!”

  Jolie felt cold horror as she gazed into Nan’s eyes and realized her friend had already given up. Only God knew what had prompted her to finally admit Jolie to the house and confide in her, even as little as she had.

  “I won’t leave you here,” Jolie whispered, furious because she hated having to hide from Ira January to protect her friend. She wanted nothing so much as to walk straight up to him and spit in his face. “It isn’t decent. And look at you … you’re narrow as a fence picket, and there are big circles under your eyes!”

  Nan dug her heels into the expensive Persian rug when Jolie tried to pull her toward the door. “I’ve got to stay,” she said. “I won’t have the medicine if I go. I need the medicine!”

  “What medicine?” Jolie asked, as a new fear rose around her like dirty floodwater. “Nan Culley, has that man been giving you laudanum?”

  Nan ran her tongue over her lips, and her eyes looked feverish and glazed. “I don’t know what it is. It makes me sleep, and when I sleep, I’m with my Joe again.”

  This time, Jolie was brooking no refusals. Nan was strong, or had been once, but Jolie was stronger, and if she had to drag her friend out of the house by the hair, she was going to do it.

  She hoped it wasn’t an omen of things to come that Mr. January was coming through the front gate, whistling, just as she hauled a protesting Nan over the threshold.

  Jolie had no weapon but bravado. “Please step out of our way, Mr. January,” she said formally. “Mrs. Culley is leaving, and she’s never coming back.”

  Ira’s gaze glittered, making the moonlight seem harsh, and he folded his arms. “Go back into the house, Nancy,” he said evenly. “I’ll tend to your little rebellion later.”

  To Jolie’s furious horror, Nan broke free of her grasp and dashed to obey. The door clicked shut behind her, and Jolie knew if she tried to gain entrance, it would be barred.

  She eased her way past January, giving him a wide berth. “If you hurt Nan or her baby,” she cried, “you’ll account for it, not just to me, but to Daniel as well!”

  The millowner laughed. “I’d just as soon not deal with Daniel at all,” he responded blithely. “But ‘accounting’ is only one of the things I’d like to do to you. And when it comes to Nancy, the law is squarely on my side, so don’t go pestering the marshal with this. She should no longer be addressed as ‘Mrs. Culley,’ you see. As of today, her name is Mrs. January.”

  Jolie swayed slightly, sickened by the news that Nan had married this monster. The house loomed behind her, sinister and gloomy, as though it were the landing at the top of a stairway leading straight into hell. Some innate evil seemed to pull at her, trying to draw her back inside.

  Somehow, Jolie managed to find the courage to stand her ground instead of bolting and running, as every impulse urged her to do. “You told me you didn’t want to make Nan your wife,” she said. “You were angry because she had no property or money to bring to the marriage.”

  January smiled, his teeth gleaming in the darkness, as Jolie imagined those of a wolf would do. “I changed my mind,” he said with a shrug. “That may be a woman’s prerogative, but it doesn’t belong to the feminine gender exclusively.”

  Jolie’s hand tightened on the gate latch for a moment before she eased it open and stepped through. “You needn’t think I’m going to forget what I’ve learned tonight, Mr. January,” she told him. “There is a way to help Nan, and rest assured, I will find it.”

  The gambler laughed. “The law says a man’s wife belongs to him, like property or livestock. I can do what I like, Mrs. Beckham, and we both know it.” With that, he went up the walk, opened the front door, and stepped inside the house.

  Jolie stood on the sidewalk beyond the fence, trembling. There was no telling what unspeakable things he might do to Nan to punish her for her defiance, and the fact that Jolie could do nothing to help made her physically ill.

  Sadly, Mr. January had been quite correct in his statements regarding his complete freedom to abuse Nan in virtually any way he liked. Wives and children both were possessions in the eyes of the law and, rather like house pets, could be disciplined in whatever way the man of the family might see fit to employ.

  It occurred to Jolie, when the lights of Mrs. Krayper’s boarding house came into view again, that she’d been fortunate indeed that it had been Big Dan Beckham who’d brought her home from the hanging that day. Dying would have been better than having to live with a fiend like Mr. January.

  As it happened, Daniel and Enoch were waiting in the boarding house’s small front parlor when Jolie slipped through the front door. She might have tried to make for the stairs, hoping to go unnoticed and thus be spared explaining why she’d defied her husband’s orders to stay put, if Enoch hadn’t spotted her first thing. He nudged his brother and pointed, and Jolie said a silent farewell to all hope of escape.

  “Where have you been?” Daniel demanded, in a furious whisper, towering over Jolie like a human mountain now. He could surely be imposing when he chose.

  “I’m glad you asked,” Jolie responded, taking his arm. “Though I’m entirely certain you won’t care for the reply.” She led him out onto the porch, where there was at least a semblance of privacy. “Daniel, I went to visit Nan Culley tonight, over at Mr. January’s place.” She saw the light of outrage kindling in Daniel’s eyes and held up her hands, palms out, in a bold request for silence. “You were certainly right about him … he’s a very wicked man. He married Nan, after all that fuss because she didn’t have land or money, and he’s mistreating her. She’s thin and she’s terribly frightened and he’s giving her some kind of medicine … laudanum, I think. Daniel, for her sake, for the baby’s, we’ve got to help her.”

  Frustration was etched into every line of Daniel’s powerful frame. “We can’t,” he said raggedly, after a long, explosive silence. “She’s his wife.”

  Jolie was shocked, even though she’d known most men thought alike when it came to dogs, idiots, half-breeds, and women. “Daniel … ”

  “It isn’t our place to interfere between a man and his wife,” her husband interrupted, in a tone of firmness and finality.

  “The hell it isn’t!” Jolie retorted, arms akimbo, eyes flashing with temper. “We’re her friends! Who’s going to look out for Nan, if not us?”

  Daniel sighed heavily, his gaze skirting Jolie’s to search the night sky beyond the gingerbread trim of Alverna Krayper’s porch roof. When he looked at her again, Jolie saw bleak resignation in his face. “Did Mrs. Culley ask for help?” he inquired, and Jolie knew by his tone that he’d already guessed the answer.

  “No,” she said, almost in a whisper, lowering her head. At first, Nan had seemed to want Jolie’s assistance, but when it came time to sort the matter out, the woman had lost her courage.

  “Until she does, Mrs. Beckham,” Daniel said, “you and I will be minding our own business. How are Gemma and Hank?”

  Jolie sighed. “They want to go home to the farm,” she replied. “Just as I do. Daniel, how long will it be?”

  “I don’t know,” her husband answered wearily. “If Fleet’s anywhere around Prosperity, he’s keeping himself well hidden.”

  “Have you managed to round up any help, or is it just you and Enoch and Deuter doing all the looking?” For understandable reasons, Jolie had minimal confidence in the law-enforcement abilities of the local marshal. As far as she could tell, the man just sat around under that big freckle on the top of his head, content to hang whoever was handy.

  “There’s a posse,” Daniel said, but the words were spiritless and Jolie knew a band of farmers and mill hands and saloon keepers would be no threat to a wily little snake like Rowdy. “If you want to call it that.”

  On impulse, Jolie went to her husband and clutched his upper arms. Her fingers could barely stretch across the hard expanse of muscle, let alone find enough purchase to get a good grip. “Daniel, leave it be. I’m begging you. Rowdy’s mean as a badger with a thorn in its paw, and he’d shoot a man on sight if the idea struck his fancy!”

  Daniel kissed Jolie’s forehead lightly. “That’s why we’ve got to find him,” he said, with resignation. “Leaving Fleet to roam the countryside would be like letting a rabid dog run loose.”

  “But you’re not a lawman,” Jolie pleaded. “It isn’t your responsibility—”

  “Isn’t it?” Daniel broke in. “I’ve got as much to lose as anybody. And I mean to protect what’s mine.”

  There would be no reasoning with Mr. Beckham; Jolie could see that. She nodded, as resigned as he was, and it seemed there were no more words to say.

  “Go inside,” Daniel told her, after a long and difficult interval had passed. “It’s getting chilly out here, and we can’t have you catching your death.”

  An argument came to mind—she was no more susceptible to chills than he was—but Jolie held it back. “Good night, Daniel,” she said, and went into the house.

  Morning brought a crisp, golden orange day, typical of late fall. Jolie saw to Hank and Gemma’s grooming, like always, and after they’d had a breakfast of oatmeal and cream in Mrs. Krayper’s kitchen, she walked them to school. Gemma and Jolie held hands, scuffing up crunchy leaves from the maple trees lining the town’s single residential street, while Hank kept himself a little apart. He watched Jolie and his sister with affectionate disdain, shaking his head once in a while so anyone who happened to be looking on would immediately know he thought girls were plain silly.

  As she was returning home from the schoolhouse a few minutes later, deep in troubled thoughts of Nan’s situation and the singular threat Rowdy represented, the idea burst upon her like the Light that surrounded Saint Paul on the road to Damascus.

  The outlaw was concerned about one thing, and one thing only, and that was the money he and Blake had taken from the bank on that portentous day in late spring. The two had hidden the loot in Daniel’s barn and then, without telling his partner, Blake had moved it. Rowdy was bold, and he was cunning, but he clearly didn’t know when to cut his losses and run, or he wouldn’t be burrowed in somewhere nearby, waiting.

  Jolie actually smiled as she hurried toward the boarding house. She’d turn over every board and rock on Dan Beckham’s place if she had to, but she’d find that money, and she’d hand it over to Rowdy. He was greedy and feral, like a rat, and probably desperate enough to try snatching the cheese from a trap.

  She didn’t want to think about some of the other things Fleet might be desperate enough to do. Jolie had a great deal at stake, and no matter how frightened she might be, she couldn’t afford to huddle docilely inside Mrs. Krayper’s boarding house and wait for the men to set things right.

  Then there was the matter of Nan’s tragic circumstances. That certainly couldn’t be left to the masculine population of the town.

  Using some of the household money Daniel had given her, Jolie hired a horse and buggy from the livery stable and set out for the farm. Clinging to the adage that mighty forces precede the bold, paving their way, she drove straight down the center of Prosperity with her chin held high and her gaze fixed straight ahead.

  Out of the corners of her eyes, she saw a few people pause to watch her drive past, but no one tried to stop her, and for that Jolie was devoutly grateful.

  She went right by her own place, though she longed to have those walls around her again and that sturdy roof over her head, and headed for Verena’s.

  Jolie found her neighbor dressed in black, as usual. Verena’s tidy house was quiet except for the ticking of an old clock on the parlor mantelpiece. Her eyes narrowed when she admitted her unexpected caller.

  “Why aren’t you at Alverna’s, where you belong?”

  “I don’t belong at Mrs. Krayper’s boarding house,” Jolie replied briskly. “Any more than you do.”

  Verena sighed and gestured toward a cushioned rocking chair in front of a sun-filled window. “I’ve never heard such a fuss as Daniel made about me staying out here alone,” the older woman said. “But I won’t be driven from my own land by some flea-chewed saddle bum, and that’s all there is to the matter. May I get you some tea?”

  Jolie shook her head, smoothing her skirts nervously over her lap. “I’ve come about Nan Culley,” she said. And then she told Verena everything she knew about their friend’s situation. “Daniel says it isn’t our business and we can’t interfere,” she finished, “but Nan is in dreadful trouble.”

  Verena looked sad. “Yes.”

  “I was thinking we could kidnap her, and bring her here. I’m sure after the medicine had worn off, Nan would come to her senses and listen to reason. She could just get on a stagecoach to Spokane and start all over again.”

  Mrs. Dailey stared pensively out the window for a long time, but Jolie knew she wasn’t seeing the climbing rosebush on the other side of the glass. She was thinking.

  Finally, she said, “It will take Nan some weeks to get better, and I don’t have the first idea how we’ll handle Ira January, but we’ve got to do something. If you can manage to get her out of that house, bring her straight to me.”

  Jolie reached out and squeezed her friend’s hand in gratitude. “Thank you.”

  “Just don’t underestimate Mr. January,” Verena warned solemnly. “He’s not a man of kindness or graces and he can be ruthless.”

  A cold finger touched Jolie’s spine. “I’ll be careful, I promise.”

  After that, the two women talked of Jolie’s unhappiness at being stuck away at the boarding house. Verena, hungry for company, brought out tea and lemon-butter cookies and things didn’t seem quite so impossible to Jolie when she left.

  Although the animals were still in the barn and Daniel lived in the house as always, the Beckham farm had a lonely, bereft feeling about it when Jolie drew up the rented horse and rig in the dooryard and climbed down. The experience would have been completely bleak if it hadn’t been for the old tomcat, Leviticus, who meandered out of the barn to greet her with a raucous meow.

  Jolie smiled sadly. “I’ll wager you know where Blake put that money, don’t you? You’re probably privy to everything that happens on this place.” She paused and sighed. “If only you could talk.”

  “Reooow,” Leviticus responded charitably.

  “I’m afraid that’s of no appreciable help to me,” Jolie answered, lifting her skirts and heading in the direction of the barn.

  She looked in every logical place … checking for loose floorboards, peering behind sacks of grain, lifting saddles and the lids of crates. The light in the open doorway crept deeper into the barn, then began to recede again. And Jolie had still found nothing.