wherever,â Hook said. âWithout me youâd both starve to death in weeks.â
Lorraineâs face didnât change, but her eyes were wounded, lifeless. She handed Kane his slicker, then took her place on the pallet beside her husband and bent her head to the child, whispering soothing words.
âLorraine,â Hook snapped, âdid you hear me?â
âI heard you, Barnabas,â the woman said quietly.
The man grabbed a handful of his wifeâs hair and forced her to look at him. His red, blistered face was twisted in fury. âThen heed me well. You were a two-dollar whore before I took you in and I can send you back to being a whore tomorrow.â
âIâm sorry, Barnabas,â Lorraine said meekly. âI promise, Iâll heed you from now on.â
Kane had seen enough. It was not his place to intervene between husband and wife. He stepped away from the wagon and walked into the night, the rain hissing around him like an angry dragon.
Why had Lorraine married such a man? Was it an act of desperation by a woman who reckoned her child needed a father?
Kane had no answers and he tried to dismiss the woman from his mind. She was none of his business and he had problems enough facing him. The day after tomorrow heâd take custody of six dangerous killers. It was nearly 250 miles to Fort Smith, and not a single yard of it would be easy. Now was not the time to think about a woman, and a married one at that.
The marshal smiled, rain beating on his lean, leathery face. As a youngster heâd pushed cattle along the Chisholm and Western trails, routes first forged by others. But now he was about to pioneer his own trailânortheast across plains, mountains and rivers, a dust-and-cuss journey across an unforgiving land that offered nothing except a hundred different ways to kill a man. With an empty wagon, plenty of supplies and good weather, the trip south from Fort Smith had been relatively uneventful. But heading back would be different now that fall was starting to crack down hard. Buff Stringfellow and his boys were no bargains either. Six desperate men who would do anything to escape the noose would be a handful.
âIâm blazing the Convict Trail,â Kane said to himself.
Despite its dire implications, he liked the sound of that.
Chapter 4
Kane and Sam bedded down in the wagon, their slickers spread on top of the cage to keep out the worst of the rain that continued to fall ceaselessly. They spent an uncomfortable night and slumbered little, but the dream had stayed away and for that Kane was grateful.
The dawn shaded gray from night and when the marshal woke from a shallow sleep, Sam was already up and had coffee on the fire.
âTheyâre pullinâ out, Logan,â the old man said as Kane joined him, stretching knots out of his back.
âSo I see,â the marshal said. He glanced at the Hook wagon and then the ashen sky. âAt least the rain has quit.â
âFor a spell at least,â Sam said. His eyes lifted slyly to Kane. âSleep all right, Marshal?â
âDid I call out?â
âNah. Not a sound. First time in a while, mind you.â
âThen I slept all right.â
Kane squatted and built his first cigarette of the day. The trees around him were ticking water and the creek had spilled over its banks, swollen by the storm. The air was cool and smelled of dampness and decaying vegetation.
Lorraine had hitched the Percherons, and Hook was up on the box, the reins in his hands. The man had some kind of grease on his face, and the eyes he turned to Kane were cold and hostile.
Sam saw it and said, âStep careful around that man, Logan.â
âHe donât worry me none.â
âHe should. Heâs a back-shooter, anâ you can take that to the bank.â
Kane thumbed a match into flame and lit his smoke. Lorraine, smiling, was walking toward him.
âNellie is resting,â