Fair Is the Rose (49 page)

"I'm taking her with me!" the half-breed called out to the wilderness.

They turned full circle. Cain was nowhere to be found. The silence was chilling.

He poked her in the head with the pistol. "Call him."

"Cain!" she yelled. The half-breed poked her again. Her eyes teared from the pain in her temple.

"Let her go!"

The voice came from a ledge in the rock high above them. She looked up and saw Cain, his rifle trained on the half-breed.

"Tell him," the half-breed prompted.

"I'm going with him, Cain." Tears streamed down her cheeks and this time she wasn't sure it had anything to do with the bruising pain of the pistol barrel. "I have to. He's come to get me."

"Let her go or I'll shoot you dead," Cain growled to the half-breed.

The half-breed laughed. He pulled her to him, jamming his forearm underneath her chin and putting her in a headlock. "You shoot me, you shoot her too."

"My aim's not that bad. Let her go."

He poked her temple again with the iron shaft of the pistol. She visibly winced.

Then a shot rang out.

The half-breed's arms fell away from her like a puppet's. She spun around and watched him fall back in the snow. There was no blood.
Just a small black hole in his forehead where the bullet had entered.

Cain loped down from the granite face of the mountain.

Sick and frightened, still unable to accept what the half-breed's presence meant, she silently watched as Cain leaned down toward the body.

"He's an Indian, isn't he?" she asked.

Cain turned grim. "The moccasins are Cherokee, but he's not Cherokee."

"How do you know?"

"Because I know this man.
He's a bounty hunter. Every lawman in the territory knows him."

She froze. The truth would have to be out now. And in the worst set of circumstances.

Aching to stop him, she watched Cain begin to remove a piece of paper that stuck out from the half-breed's vest. It had one small drop of blood on it, old and dark.
Someone else's.

"Don't look at the paper." She couldn't hide the fear in her voice. Desperately she tried to think of the way to explain.

"You know what the paper says?"

She nodded, unable to look at him.

He gazed at the body. "So he was coming here for you." It was not a question.

"My—my uncle sent him. He told me." In despair, she turned away from him. The end of the line had come.

Cain slowly withdrew the paper from the half-breed's dirty vest. As he read it, his face turned hard and pale, as if he was battling some internal war.

There was not much more she could tell him. He knew everything now, except the part about Didier, and that she would have to convince him of, but with no other evidence than her character and her pleas, she didn't know if she could.

"Is this true?" His words were harsh, choked. He smoothed the wanted poster with his hand.

She looked at it, damned by the sketch of her face and the outline of the rose-shaped scar, damned by the vicious crimes of which it accused her.

"Is this true? That you were in an asylum for three years?"

She couldn't meet his eyes. Her answer was barely a croak. "Yes."

"An asylum for the criminally insane?"

"Yes."

The silence was morbid.
A nightmare.
More deafening than a roar.

"Were you . . . treated well there?"

"My family connections are very good. I was treated as well as one could expect." She finally broke down. "I didn't do it, Cain. I didn't. My uncle—my uncle blamed me for his crimes, and they convicted me falsely—"

She found the courage to look at him. He studied the paper in silence, as if somehow it might explain what had happened to her parents better than she could.

"Please believe me. You've got to believe me."

He stared at the wanted poster as if he couldn't take his eyes from it. "This explains so much—your odd behavior at Falling Water—your fear of the law—your dream—your guilt ..."

"I didn't do it. Oh, God, you've got to see I loved my parents. It's my uncle who did it. Please, please believe me. I'm not insane." A sob caught in her throat.

He took a long time to speak. "It's all right, Christal. If you tell me you didn't do this, I'll believe you." His voice lowered to a hard whisper. "I love you. I've got to believe you. I
will
believe you."

"But you won't even look at me."

"Just give me the proof of your innocence. That's all I need."

"I'm innocent. Or else why would my uncle send this man here to kill me?"

"He's a bounty hunter. For all I know he could have come here just to collect the reward on this wanted poster." He seemed to force his gaze to meet hers; his eyes remained shuttered. "Tell me more about the asylum—about why they put you there."

"It was a compromise to jail. My uncle made everyone believe he was helping me." She looked down at her hand and the cursed rose branded into her palm. "This scar proved that I was in the room when my parents died. Because of the trauma of seeing the crime, I didn't remember anything of that night until four years ago. Then I remembered that Didier was the one who killed them . . . and locked me in the flaming room to die also. ..."

"There must be evidence—"

"If there were evidence, I would have found justice and I wouldn't be running. There is no evidence but my word." She kept her eyes lowered, hiding the pain. "I know what you're thinking. You're thinking I could indeed be insane. My memory of the truth could be nothing more than a dream I had one night, absolving me of my guilt and pinning it on my uncle." Silent tears ran down her cheeks. "I don't know what else to tell you. I believe I'm innocent, so much so that I've been saving for years to hire a detective to find my uncle and prove I am. But maybe I am insane. Maybe my memory is all wrong and I just can't accept . . . what I've done."

"No!" He raked his hand through his hair. "You didn't commit this crime." He balled up the paper and threw it on die ground. "I'll believe you and there will be no more talk like this."

"If you believe me, let me see it in your eyes." Her voice was filled with anguish.

He didn't look at her.

Slowly he
answered,
his voice low and guttural, like a wounded animal's. "I went through hell during the war believing in right and wrong. In the end, everything got twisted. I can't let everything get twisted again. We've got to prove your innocence."

"And if you cannot?"

He looked at her, the emotion in his eyes unfathomable. "The decision to go to war is simple. The result is not. But if we're to have a future, you must return to New York and face the charges. We'll find a way to prove your innocence. We'll find your uncle." He finally touched her, taking her in his arms. "Will you return to New York with me?"

"Yes," she
whispered,
her heart filling with despair. He was doing everything she knew he would. There was no way to prove her innocence without Didier's confession and getting that was unlikely, if not impossible. She would rot in Park View for the rest of her days or, if the judge decided to punish her for her escape, be hanged. Either way, the damage was done. She'd lost him. He'd never prove her innocence and until that innocence could be proven, she never
have
him again.

"I wish you were an outlaw, Cain, do you know that?" she said bleakly. "I wish you really had been a member of Kineson's gang, and I wished we'd escaped that night I begged you to."

"If you didn't do this terrible thing, Christal, we'll find a way to prove it."

"Then let's return to Noble. You can wire New York and send for a marshal to take me there."

"I'll take you there."

"No." She stood her ground. "You won't come with me. There's nothing you can do. I couldn't bear to have you see me—locked up—" She lost her voice for a moment. "If I'm freed, I'll come back to you. If not. . . ." She didn't finish. There was no point. She would not come back. Her sister, Alana, had fought for her freedom for years. It was a futile effort to renew the battle, but she would for his sake.
Even though this time she might be truly driven insane.

"I'll have someone in Noble in a couple of weeks to take us to New York. Argue if you must, but I'm going with you to face the charges. Get your things. We'll need to return to town." He glanced at the dead half-breed. "There's no point staying here any longer."

She nodded. Reality had come and found them anyway. She shivered, finally realizing how cold she was in just her shift.

Cain saddled the
Ap
while she dressed. She walked out of the cabin with the bolt of sky-blue wool clutched to her chest.

He looked at her, puzzlement in his eyes, as if he wondered why she still eared about the fabric.

"I'll make a dress while we wait for the marshals." It was the only answer she offered.

He helped her mount. They rode out of the valley, the mountains' blue icy peaks beckoning behind her, hinting of unreachable, mythical places.

Her thoughts were not so lofty and far away. She held on to Macaulay's back and thought of the gown she would fashion from the sky-blue wool. If she could prove her innocence, she wanted it to be her wedding gown. If she could not, whether she died by the hangman or aged infirmity, at least the gown would be done.