Martha tried to hide the second contraction.
She failed.
Boon saw her grip the doorframe.
His expression changed instantly.
“Martha?”
“I’m fine.”
“No.”
“It passed.”
“How long?”
She glared.
“Please do not start timing me again.”
Boon pulled out his pocket watch.
Martha wanted to throw it through the window.
Doctor Whitcomb hurried in with two soldiers carrying Henry Sutter on a canvas stretcher.
Everything became chaos.
Sutter was thin, gray-faced, and bleeding from a wound near his ribs.
Whitcomb pointed.
“Table.”
The soldiers lowered him.
“Everyone out.”
Sutter grabbed Whitcomb’s sleeve.
“Mercer.”
“Later.”
“Now.”
His voice was barely audible.
Boon stepped closer.
“I’m here.”
Sutter’s eyes opened.
“You brought it?”
“The ledger?”
Sutter nodded.
“Dwyer has it.”
“Not enough.”
Boon leaned closer.
“What is?”
Sutter coughed.
“Black book.”
Boon went still.
“Amos said that before he died.”
“I know.”
“Where?”
Sutter’s eyes moved toward the burning warehouse visible through the window.
“Tully’s office.”
Dwyer swore.
“Warehouse office?”
Sutter nodded.
“Floor safe.”
Martha remembered the metal key inside the packet.
She pulled it from her pocket.
“This?”
Sutter stared.
“Yes.”
Dwyer took it.
“Why put the key with the copy ledger?”
“In case I didn’t make it.”
“You nearly didn’t.”
Sutter smiled weakly.
“Still undecided.”
Whitcomb shoved everyone toward the door.
“I said out.”
Martha followed.
Halfway through the doorway, another contraction bent her forward.
This one was worse.
Boon caught her waist.
Dwyer looked over.
“How far apart?”
“None of your business,” Martha snapped.
“Five minutes,” Boon said.
“Traitor.”
Dwyer looked toward Whitcomb.
The doctor returned, felt Martha’s pulse, and asked several questions.
Then his expression grew serious.
“Your labor may have started.”
Martha’s throat tightened.
“It’s too early.”
“Seven months is early. Not impossible.”
“Can you stop it?”
“Perhaps.”
Whitcomb looked toward Boon.
“She needs quiet.”
Boon glanced toward the fire.
“Quiet may be difficult.”
Dwyer held up the key.
“I need the black ledger.”
Boon nodded.
“I’m coming.”
Martha grabbed his hand.
He turned.
For the first time, she did not care who saw.
“Don’t.”
Boon looked torn.
“Tully won’t let that book survive.”
“Then let Dwyer go.”
“I know the warehouse.”
“You’re bleeding.”
“It’s a scratch.”
“It is soaking through your shirt.”
“Martha—”
Another contraction came.
Her fingers crushed his hand.
Boon moved close.
“Breathe.”
She did.
Slowly.
Until it eased.
“Please,” she whispered.
The word changed him.
Boon looked toward the warehouse.
Then toward Dwyer.
Dwyer understood.
“Stay with her.”
Boon nodded.
Dwyer ran.
Whitcomb led Martha toward a back room.
Outside, gunfire started again.
The fire had spread to the warehouse roof.
Soldiers formed a line with buckets.
Women carried water.
Horses screamed in the stable.
Martha’s world narrowed to pain.
Boon remained beside the door while Whitcomb examined her.
“You’re not fully in labor yet,” the doctor said.
Martha almost cried with relief.
“But?”
Whitcomb hesitated.
“There’s always a but.”
“Your body is trying.”
“What do we do?”
“Rest. Fluids. Keep you calm.”
A gunshot cracked outside.
Martha laughed bitterly.
“Excellent setting for calm.”
Whitcomb looked toward Boon.
“Can you keep bullets out of this room?”
“Planning on it.”
Whitcomb handed Martha a cup.
“Drink.”
She obeyed.
Minutes passed.
Then more.
The contractions did not stop.
But they did not become dramatically stronger either.
Boon sat on the floor beside the bed.
Martha looked down at him.
“You should let Whitcomb treat your shoulder.”
“He did.”
“When?”
“While you were changing rooms.”
“That was two minutes.”
“He works fast.”
Martha smiled weakly.
“Why did Tully start the fire?”
“Destroy records. Create confusion. Maybe kill Sutter.”
“And you?”
“That would be a bonus.”
“What happens if Dwyer finds the black book?”
“Depends what’s in it.”
“And if it proves everything?”
Boon looked toward her.
“Then maybe I stop being a murderer.”
“You were never one.”
“You’ve known me five days.”
“Six.”
“Strong evidence.”
“I know what I saw.”
“What?”
Martha looked down at their hands.
Boon had not noticed she was still holding his.
“A man who could have taken advantage of a woman with no one to protect her and instead slept in the dirt.”
His eyes lowered.
“A man who carried me without making me feel ashamed. A man who sat through a storm while I was terrified. A man who drove toward a fort where he expected arrest because I needed a doctor.”
Boon did not speak.
Martha swallowed.
“That doesn’t prove what happened three years ago.”
“No.”
“But it tells me who you are now.”
A long silence passed.
Boon turned his hand beneath hers.
Their fingers rested together.
Not quite intertwined.
Close.
Another contraction began.
Martha squeezed.
Boon remained still until it passed.
Outside, shouting grew louder.
Then footsteps.
Dwyer appeared.
His face was blackened with smoke.
He carried a leather-bound book.
Boon stood.
“You found it.”
Dwyer opened the cover.
Black leather.
Inside were columns of numbers.
Names.
Payments.
Dates.
Dwyer turned pages quickly.
“Stolen medical supplies. Grain. ammunition. Payroll.”
Boon stared.
“Bell?”
Dwyer found an entry.
His expression hardened.
“Payment to Amos Bell.”
Martha’s heart fell.
“Tully paid him?”
Dwyer shook his head.
“Not Bell. Somebody used Bell’s initials for money transferred the day he died.”
Boon frowned.
Dwyer turned another page.
“Here.”
A notation beside the payment.
A.B. silenced. B.M. blamed.
Boon stopped breathing.
Martha sat up.
“B.M.?”
“Boon Mercer.”
Dwyer nodded.
“Tully kept notes like a man who believed nobody would ever read them.”
Boon’s face emptied.
Three years.
Three years living as a fugitive.
Three years carrying another man’s crime.
And the truth had been written in ink the entire time.
“Is it enough?” Martha asked.
Dwyer closed the book.
“With Sutter’s testimony?”
“Yes.”
Relief hit so hard she began crying.
Boon looked toward her.
Martha laughed through the tears.
“You’re not hanging.”
“Wasn’t planning on it.”
Dwyer almost smiled.
Then a soldier appeared behind him.
“Sergeant!”
“What?”
“Tully’s gone.”
Dwyer’s expression changed.
“Gone where?”
“South gate. Took two horses.”
Boon moved.
Dwyer stopped him.
“No.”
“He’ll disappear.”
“Not your job.”
“He knows the country.”
“So do I.”
Boon looked toward Martha.
She saw the argument die in his face.
He would stay.
For her.
Dwyer ran.
The fort mobilized quickly.
Four riders departed through the south gate.
Then another six.
The fire was finally contained.
Near dawn, Sutter stabilized enough to speak.
Tully’s men who remained at the fort began surrendering.
Pike talked first.
Men like Pike always did.
By sunrise, the entire theft operation had begun unraveling.
Martha’s contractions gradually slowed.
Doctor Whitcomb looked pleased.
“Baby appears willing to negotiate.”
Martha rested against the pillows.
Boon sat nearby, exhausted.
“Go sleep,” she told him.
“No.”
“Your sense of self-preservation is poor.”
“So I’ve heard.”
A cavalry patrol returned midmorning.
Tully was not with them.
Dwyer entered the infirmary.
“Lost his trail near the river.”
Boon’s expression hardened.
“He’ll come back.”
“For what?”
Boon looked toward the black ledger sitting on Whitcomb’s desk.
“That.”
Dwyer shook his head.
“He’d be insane.”
“Men become very brave when prison is behind them.”
Martha listened.
“You think he’ll try to steal it?”
“Or destroy it.”
Dwyer picked up the book.
“It goes to the commanding officer’s safe.”
Boon nodded.
That should have ended it.
But Wade Tully had built his life on believing other people were weaker, poorer, more frightened, and easier to sacrifice than he was.
He had been right often enough to become dangerous.
That afternoon, Martha finally slept.
When she woke, Boon was gone.
A note sat beside the bed.
Dwyer asked for me. Stay here. I mean it.
—B
Martha rolled her eyes.
Even his notes gave orders.
She swung her feet toward the floor.
Then stopped.
For once, perhaps she really should stay.
Outside, the fort was unusually quiet.
Too quiet.
Martha looked through the window.
A wagon rolled slowly toward the gate.
Nothing strange.
Then she recognized the driver.
Pike.
The man who had been arrested the night before.
Martha’s pulse jumped.
How was he free?
She looked toward the guard.
A soldier lay behind the post.
Not moving.
Martha stood.
Pike turned toward the infirmary.
And behind him, inside the wagon, Wade Tully raised a rifle.
Their eyes met through the window.
Tully smiled.
Then he aimed directly at Martha.
---