Jack Simmons raised a brow. “I, uh, think this might be a bit too much horse for you, Lawrence.” The livery owner had lost his irreverent humor, hesitating over making his recommendation as if worried about the teacher taking offense. Miss Gilliam had been right. Benson had clout in this town.
The rotund man chuckled off the warning with a wave of his handkerchief. “I’m not asking for myself, Mr. Simmons. Mercy! How ridiculous would that be? I’m sure I couldn’t even mount the creature. I won’t be trading in my buggy any time soon.”
Jack grinned, obviously relieved that no offense had been taken.
“No, it’s my nephew I’m thinking of. The boy’s nearly as tall as Mr. Fowler here, and he loves to race.” Benson leaned forward and winked at Logan. “I spied you on the road earlier. Running like the very wind, you were.”
Logan kept his mien pleasant despite the fact that this weasel watching him while he’d been too caught up in his own head to notice churned his stomach. Benson must’ve been traveling on the crossroad that led from the schoolhouse. Logan had been so stirred up over his conversation with Eva that he’d paid little attention to his surroundings until that farmer had passed him.
“Shamgar’s a real goer, all right,” Logan said. He gave his gelding a pat. “But he’s not for sale.”
“That’s a shame. I would have been the boy’s favorite uncle for certain.” Benson shrugged and stuffed his handkerchief back into his coat pocket. “Can’t blame a fellow for trying.”
Not unless his trying involved drowning a young woman. Logan could blame him all day for that. But of course, he kept that accusation to himself.
“You have a good eye for horseflesh, sir.” Logan tugged the brim of his hat. “I’ll take your offer as a compliment.”
“As it was intended.” Benson smiled, then turned to the liveryman. “Now, Simmons, how about that bench spring?”
“I’ll get right on it,” Jack said. “Should have it to you by the end of the day.”
As Jack followed the teacher out to where he’d parked his buggy, Logan took the initiative to lead Shamgar to a back stall. Away from the teasing. The noise. The need to pretend.
In the dim recesses of the stable, Logan inhaled to settle his nerves and his mind. The familiar aromas of hay, manure, and horse liniment filled his nostrils as the voices faded. He moved to unbuckle Shamgar’s cinch and eyed the schoolmaster over the horse’s back. Benson was leaving, speaking to each fellow as he went, even going so far as to raise a hand in farewell to Logan, his gaze finding him at the back of the livery as if he’d been fully aware of his location the entire time.
A shiver snaked down Logan’s nape, but he grinned and raised a hand in return.
That was not someone Logan would choose to sit across from at the poker table. Too calculated and ruthless. Even if Logan hadn’t been aware of Christie Gilliam’s story, Benson’s bearing and mannerisms proclaimed his traits. This was not a man you crossed.
He probably had the best behaved students in the county.
But it was his intent toward Miss Gilliam that caused Logan the most concern. Pleasing his pupils’ parents would keep the schoolmaster in check in the classroom, but Earl hadn’t seemed particularly distraught about his stepdaughter’s disappearance. The only scuttlebutt Logan had picked up the last two weeks over poker games was a comment or two about the idiot girl who had finally run off. No one seemed surprised by the news. Some figured she had tired of dodging the backside of Earl’s hand, while others speculated she’d wandered into the woods and was too dull to find her way home. The marshal’s fliers were the only evidence that anyone harbored a concern for her whereabouts, and those could have been posted as easily at Benson’s behest as Earl’s. If Benson was behind them, that meant no one would notice, or even care, if the girl never returned.
Logan really needed to discuss the situation with Seth. Fine-tune the plan. Nail down the specifics. If Seth would even give him the time of day once Eva revealed Logan’s true agenda.
Logan sighed and lifted Shamgar’s head from the water barrel. “Not too much, now.” He distracted his horse by slipping his bridle off to give him a break from the bit. “We don’t want you cramping. Enough things have gone wrong today already.”
Eva. Were things really over between them, or was there hope for reconciliation? Logan grimaced as he hefted the saddle from Shamgar’s back.
Lord, I don’t want things to be over. She means too much to me. But I’m stuck. Gaining justice for my mother means hurting Eva’s family, and letting go of my quest means hurting my own family. What am I supposed to do?
No answer spoke to him from the rafters as he slid off the saddle blanket and started rubbing the gelding down with an old towel. Instead, pieces of his conversation with Eva came zinging back to land like mosquitoes on his skin. Pricking and stinging and leaving an itch he couldn’t quite scratch.
Have you asked your mother what she wants?
Logan grabbed the back of his neck. So what if he hadn’t asked her outright? She was so withdrawn, she barely spoke to him at all. She’d just stared out the window of his aunt’s house and knitted baby blankets for the poor box at church. He’d even bought her an apple tree sapling with some of his first winnings, hoping she would perk up and find purpose in gardening again, but she’d made him return it. Said she had no use for it.
He wanted his mother back. The woman who smiled at him and nurtured fruit trees and scolded him for bringing muddy shoes into the house. He’d thought restoring what had been lost to her would restore what had been lost to him.
Vengeance doesn’t heal pain, Logan. Love heals pain.
But it didn’t. He loved his mother. He’d shown it in a hundred different ways, yet she still clung to her grief. To her despair. Where was the healing in that?
Where is the love in what you are doing?
“I don’t know!”
Shamgar tossed his head and craned his neck around with a scold in his eyes for interrupting his nap and massage. Logan grabbed a currycomb and worked through the chestnut’s coat, but his mind refused to settle.
That was the problem. He didn’t know. Didn’t know how to help his mother. Didn’t know how to keep Eva in his life. Didn’t even know how to leave this town without looking like a complete imbecile for riding here in the first place.
“There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” The proverb, spoken in his mother’s voice, echoed in his mind.
“Remember this, Logan,” she had said as the two of them walked hand-in-hand to the stagecoach after visiting his father’s grave for the last time. “Your father never took this verse to heart. I don’t want you making the same mistake.”
Why was that memory suddenly popping into his head? He hadn’t thought of that conversation in . . . well, not since it happened. To be honest, he’d been too angry to think about anything beyond making the man who’d cheated his father pay.
Making him pay . . .
The currycomb dropped from Logan’s hand and thudded to the floor. The livery walls faded. Even Shamgar ceased to exist as the curtain veiling Logan’s heart finally fell away.
All this time, he’d convinced himself he sought justice. That his quest was righteous. A noble sacrifice that he’d dedicated seven years of his life to achieving. The wrong would be made right.
All this time, he’d lied to himself.
Deep inside, he was still that angry boy who wanted to make someone pay.
Dear Lord. Logan staggered backward until his spine pressed into the wall behind him. Eva was right. He was seeking revenge.
He raised a trembling hand to his face and rubbed at eyes that suddenly itched. His jaw clenched, and he banged his head against the wood planks supporting him, disgusted by the ugliness inside him. The anger. The hurt. The thirst to inflict pain.
“Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thys
elf: I am the Lord.”
The verse rammed into Logan’s gut like a sucker punch. “I am the Lord.” Those last four words left no room for arguing. For diverting blame. For rationalizing.
“Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.”
Logan sank down the length of the wall, his hands covering his face. Covering his shame. His heart throbbed as truth chiseled away its petrified outer layer. How had he ignored this voice for so long? Had his heart really become so hard?
“He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.”
The chisel dug into another layer. Breaking him. Bleeding him.
“I hear you.” The whispered acknowledgment fell from Logan’s lips like a prayer. “I hear you.”
28
“Logan?” Jack Simmons’s irritating voice shattered the holiness of the moment. “Ya get lost back there?”
Logan scrambled to his feet, rubbed the moisture from his eyes, and dragged his hat forward to hide the evidence of his encounter with the Almighty. His heart was too raw, and Jack was too flippant. Better to hide until he could find some privacy to chew over what had just happened.
“There you are,” Jack said as he approached the last stall. “I brought you a feed bag if’n you still want it. Two bits.”
Logan nodded and dug a quarter out of his trouser pocket. “Thanks.” He accepted the bag without meeting Jack’s gaze. “I’ll be done here in a few.”
“No rush.” Jack patted Shamgar’s hindquarters. “You gonna stick around for some cards at the Seven Ponies later tonight? That braggart Bellows can’t wear his hat no more with how fat his head’s swole up since he raked in those winnings from you the other night. He needs someone to shrink him back down to size.”
Logan slipped the feed bag over Shamgar’s nose and fit the strap behind his ears. “Not tonight. Got some unfinished business back at my place.”
“That business got something to do with a female?”
Logan’s head whipped around.
Jack chuckled. “Don’t look so shocked. There’s only one thing that gets a man worked up enough to race his horse to a lather when there’s no prize money at the end of the line—a woman.”
“Yeah, well, this particular female is worth the exercise.” Logan settled the saddle blanket back into place. Shamgar had rested enough, and Logan was more than ready to be away from the nosy liveryman.
“Got it that bad, do ya? No wonder yer turning us down for poker. The little woman’s got her reformin’ hooks in ya already.” Jack shook his head. “Pity.” He grabbed the saddle from where it straddled the half wall on the far side of Shamgar, then came around to swing it up onto the gelding’s back. “Just remember, you know where to come for medication when she ties your guts in a knot. Guaranteed to unravel what ails ya and erase troubles from the mind.”
“And create a few dozen more,” Logan grumbled beneath his breath.
Jack must have heard, for he chuckled as he sauntered down the center aisle toward the front of the livery.
Logan patted Shamgar’s neck. “Time to get out of here, old boy.” He had changes to make. A life path to renavigate.
He had to get right with God before he could get right with Eva.
He removed the feed bag, cinched the saddle, and placed the bit back in Shamgar’s mouth. Then, without more than a wave to Jack and the rest of the gathering, he led his horse away from the livery and back to the road. Back toward Eva and the Hamiltons.
When Ben Franklin lay a handful of miles behind him, Logan slowed Shamgar to a walk and returned his thoughts to where they’d been before Jack had interrupted.
“I screwed up.” Not the most elegant prayer ever uttered, but he figured it needed to be said. “Sorry, Lord.” And he was. Down to his bones.
He ached with remorse. With self-derision. He’d listened to the serpent, just like Eve had so long ago in that garden. He’d chosen to ignore the Lord’s instructions and instead focused on the message that matched what he wanted to hear. You’re not seeking revenge. You’re seeking justice. An eye for an eye. It’s your right.
How conveniently he’d forgotten Jesus’s teaching of turning the other cheek, of doing good to those who persecute.
“I need to make this right, Lord. With the Hamiltons. With Eva. But what do I do about Mama?” His throat clogged at the thought of his mother alone in her room, closing herself off from the world.
Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
The words of Jesus echoed in his mind, a pointed reminder that it was Logan’s job to live for God, and God’s job to take care of the rest. Letting go didn’t come easy, not where his mama was concerned, but all his efforts to fix the situation thus far had failed. Time to bring in the big guns, the ones he should have engaged from the start.
“Help her, Lord.” Logan squinted against the sun as his face lifted heavenward. “I don’t know how.” His fingers tightened on the reins. “Heal her heart, and show me how to be the son she needs.”
An idea whispered into his heart. He should write to his mother and apologize for being so consumed with his selfish schemes that he’d left her alone and neglected. Eva had recognized his mistake from the very start, and like a blockhead, he’d waved off her concerns as if she didn’t know what she was talking about.
He had a lot to atone for. With his mother. With the Hamiltons. With Eva.
His head brimming with thoughts of letters, apologies, and reparations, Logan clicked his tongue at Shamgar to increase their pace. Yet when they turned down the lane to his unfinished cabin, all higher-plane thoughts narrowed to the sharpened point of the physical.
Someone had been in his yard. The sawhorses he’d set up by the lumber pile were missing.
Logan moved the reins to his left hand and reached for his revolver with his right. His knees tensed, sending Shamgar’s ears pricking forward at attention.
He scanned the area. Nothing else seemed amiss. He turned his attention to the cabin, and his gut tightened. A dark shadow loomed in the kitchen. Not moving, just . . . waiting.
Logan dismounted, careful to keep his gaze as well as his gun trained on the doorway. Still no movement inside. He jogged closer, until the shadow took shape.
A man. Definitely a man. Seated.
Odd, since Logan had no furniture.
“Who’s there?” he called.
“Holster your weapon, Fowler. This ain’t that kind of ambush.”
But it was an ambush. Zacharias Hamilton was waiting for him. In possession of Logan’s full name and his intentions, as well.
Logan lowered his revolver and straightened his stance. The moment he’d been planning for seven years was upon him, and instead of satisfaction and triumph, he felt only dread and regret.
Fitting his revolver into its holster, Logan breached the threshold.
Zacharias Hamilton sat on a crude stool fashioned from a log from Logan’s woodpile. The missing sawhorses supported four wooden planks from his lumber stores to create a tabletop, and a matching log stool of dubious height sat close to the door, waiting expectantly for Logan to join the tableau.
“I understand you want to challenge me to a game. High stakes.” Hamilton’s face showed no emotion beyond a sardonic confidence designed to inspire the opposite effect in his opponent. He thumped a knuckle against the top of a thin leather pouch sitting on the table to his right. “I brought the deed.”
Logan shook his head. “Put it away. We won’t be playing.”
Hamilton raised a brow. “I thought that was your endgame.”
“It was, but not anymore.” Logan stared his nemesis straight in the eye. “I forgive you.”
He hadn’t known what to expect from Hamilton after uttering those words, but it sure as shooting wasn’t for him to leap from his stool like a wolf out for blood.
“You forgive me? No. That’s not how this works.” Hamilton advanced around the table. “You initiated this game whe
n you came to Pecan Gap, when you courted my sister as a way to get close to me.”
Logan’s jaw clenched. “Leave Eva out of this.”
Hamilton jabbed a finger at Logan’s face. “You’re the one who brought her into it. The one who broke her heart and left her crying in your wake.”
Logan’s gut twisted at the image Hamilton painted. Eva, cheeks stained with tears he’d caused, her heart aching, the wings of her beautiful spirit clipped and sore. “I never wanted to hurt her,” he murmured through a clogged throat. “I love her.”
“Well, I love her too, and unlike you, everything I do and have ever done is to protect her. To provide for her.” Hamilton curled his hand into a fist and, with deliberate slowness, lowered it to his side. “Yes, I cheated your father out of his land. And I’d do it again to provide a permanent shelter for an asthmatic kid who was so thin you could see the outline of his bones through his skin and a little girl who prayed for a real home every night in her bedtime prayers.”
A growl rumbled in Hamilton’s throat as he pivoted away from Logan and stalked to his side of the table. “I’m sorry you and your ma lost your home,” he admitted, his back turned as he braced his hand against the framed wall studs, “but I ain’t sorry Seth and Evie found theirs.” He dropped his hand and turned to face Logan. He picked up a small, rectangular case from the center of the table and tossed it to land faceup in front of Logan. Two initials were tooled into the russet leather.
“J.M.?”
Hamilton’s face gave little away. “Jedidiah Mitchell.”
Logan’s brows shot up. “The riverboat gambler?” Mitchell was a legend. Even in Texas, people knew of him. Just as young hotheads with pistols sought to make a name for themselves by challenging experienced gunslingers to duels, young cardsharps sought to establish their expertise by taking down legends like Jedidiah Mitchell at the tables. At least they had, until a poor loser back-shot him in an alley in New Orleans.