Whitley’s smile faltered, then vanished. There was gravity in her gaze. “You have to forgive yourself, Cole.”
He didn’t respond immediately. His eyes fell to the letter in his hand, then to the contract on the desk and studied both at length. Finally, reluctantly, he said, “It’s not a matter of geography, Whitley.”
Looking up to gauge her reaction, Coleridge Monroe found he was once more alone.
Reidsville, Colorado
September 1884
“I reckon you’re thinking this is a fool’s errand.”
Coleridge Monroe glanced up from closely watching his mare’s progress on the narrow mountain trail. He was convinced that her steadiness was directly related to his sharp eye, that if his attention wandered for long, she would happily throw him off. “You don’t strike me as a fool, Deputy,” he said.
Will Beatty turned easily in his saddle to get a look behind him. “Now that’s real kind of you to say so.” One corner of his mouth kicked up when he saw how closely Monroe was watching the mare’s step. The doctor had about as much schooling as a man could stand, but he didn’t know his way around a horse. “No point to you starin’ at her like that. I guess Dolly there knows this trail about as well as most trackers. Better than some.”
“Really.” Cole was skeptical.
“It’s a fact. She’s as sure-footed a mare as you’re likely to find in Joe Redmond’s livery, and she’s been all over the territory more than once.”
Cole dared to look off to his left where the side of the mountain seemed to have been sheared off by a single slashing stroke of the Almighty’s hand. He thought of the mountains back east, the ones with the rounded tops and less dramatic inclines, and decided that for all the majesty of the Rockies, he infinitely preferred the gentler, aged Allegheny and Appalachian ranges. He didn’t mention this to Will Beatty. The deputy was clearly comfortable with his surroundings. This climb was simply all in a day’s work, and this day being Monday, it was his turn to provide escort up the mountain to the town’s outliers and loners.
“You all right, Doc?” Will asked. His glance didn’t miss much as it took in Coleridge Monroe. The doc was long and lean, but he rode like he had a poker for a spine–one that had been inserted right up his ass, if Sid Walker was to be believed. Sid, who suffered from crippling rheumatism, made this pronouncement after meeting with Monroe for the first time and not caring for what the doctor had to tell him. Worse, he informed everyone, “He’s no Doc Diggins. Didn’t even offer me a drink.” Will was prepared to give the doctor the benefit of the doubt, if not quite as much leeway as the women were. Every female in town seemed to like Coleridge Monroe just fine. Most of them had already found a symptom of one kind or another that required the new doc’s attention.
Will didn’t see that a thick head of hair the color of an old copper and a couple of green eyes were all that much to stamp the doc as handsome, but even his wife seemed to think different. Normally she was sensible about men, which served her well enough when she had been the town’s sole madam, but now that she was his wife, she liked to tease him by waxing on about Coleridge Monroe’s fine looks. Patrician, she called them. Outside of her hearing, he’d asked the sheriff what that meant. Noble, he’d been told. Women apparently said that when a man had a nose like a blade, a jawbone set so tight it could grind glass, and a certain remoteness that was not unattractive. Be that as it may, right now the noble doc looked as though he’d like to puke. Will thought that was probably why he took some pleasure in pointing it out. “If you don’t mind me saying, you’re looking a little peaked.”
Cole refocused his attention on Dolly’s progress. “Peaked. That’s a good word for it considering our location.”
It took Will a moment to catch the doctor’s meaning.
When he did, he slapped his thigh. “Well, I’ll be.” He grinned, and two deep, crescent-shaped dimples appeared on either side of his mouth. “That ain’t half bad. A little peaked.” His smile faded when he saw Coleridge start to weave in the saddle. “Lean forward. Grab Dolly’s mane. You gotta help her up the slope.”
Cole was loath to release the reins, so he plunged his gloved fingers into the mare’s ebony mane with the reins still wound between them. Dolly tossed her head at the suddenness of his move, but she held steady to the trail. Cole caught his breath, sucking in air between clenched teeth. Light-headedness faded.
“How you doin’?” Will asked. “Should we stop for a bit?”
“No. I’m good. Just some vertigo.”
“How’s that again?”
“Vertigo. Dizziness.” He didn’t explain it was a common enough symptom in response to heights. He doubted Will Beatty had ever experienced it. “I don’t recognize this route we’re taking. I had a map the sheriff drew for me the last time I attempted this.”
“Oh, Wyatt wouldn’t have sent you this way. Not on your own. There’s another trail we could have followed, but that would have taken longer. I figured you were anxious to make the acquaintance of the Abbots and get back to town straightaway.”
Cole would not let himself dwell on what route the deputy meant for them to take on their return. It would be a true measure of Will Beatty’s compassion if he elected to follow the trail first suggested by the sheriff.
The deputy and his mount crested the ridge first, and Dolly dutifully followed. It took Cole a moment to realize they had ceased to climb. His grip on the mare’s mane eased, and he sat up straight, shrugging the knots out of his shoulders and between his blades. Will slowed and allowed him to draw close.
“Not bad for a greenhorn,” Will said. “You did all right,
Doc.”
Cole’s tight smile was more in the way of grimace.
“Thanks. I think.”
“No, I mean it. You spooked me a little back there. Dolly, too. Thought you might slide right out of your saddle, but you held fast. I don’t tell everyone this, but I had some of that vertigo once watching ol’ Doc Diggins take a slug out of Wyatt’s chest. Had to hold a bucket in my lap and my head over the bucket. I reckon that’s the kind of thing that doesn’t bother you at all.”
Coleridge Monroe regarded the deputy a long moment, this time with appreciation for the man’s forthrightness. “Was that the last time someone was shot in town?”
Will thought about it, then nodded. “Yeah, that’d be right. Guess that’d be a year and a bit now. We had a hangin’ since then, but that was after a regular trial. Judge Wentworth saw that everything was done proper. Anyway, Wyatt and me don’t hold with lynchin’, though Lord knows, it’s tempting when you gotta wait a stretch for the judge to make his rounds.”
Cole wasn’t certain how he should respond. He elected to offer up a noise from the back of his throat that could be interpreted as the deputy saw fit. It turned out to be enough encouragement for Will Beatty to continue in the same vein.
“Now, outside of the town proper we had a couple of miscreants–that’s the sheriff’s word for them, and he does set store by a particular word now and again. You know what that means, don’t you, Doc?”
“I do.”
“Figured you did, you being an educated man and all. Columbia, is that right?”
“Yes. How did you know? You weren’t on the search committee.”
“No, but my wife was. Still is, matter of fact, if you don’t work out like they hope.