When the Missouri Ran Red

by Jim R. Woolard

Genres: Coming of Age; War & Military; Literary Fiction

Synopsis

Set in the final devastating months of the American Civil War, this powerhouse of a novel from award-winning author Jim R. Woolard follows one man’s harrowing journey from Confederate captive to Union prisoner to unchained force of vengeance . . .
 
Autumn, 1864. Rebel bushwhackers have seized and looted a small town in Missouri. Wounded and left for dead by his half-brother, seventeen-year-old Owen Wainwright is captured and conscripted by the Confederate Army. As the troops’ blacksmith, he witnesses the horrors of war firsthand: the savagery of General Selby’s Iron Brigade, the massacres of Union troops, the bloody battles at Lexington, Westport, and Mine Creek. Against all odds, Owen survives with the help of an unlikely ally—a new friend in arms and the only person he trusts. But if fate is cruel, war can be crueler . . .
 
Caught in the crossfire of a deadly Yankee ambush, Owen is arrested and jailed in a Union prison. Beaten and brutalized by guards, he begins to give up hope—until a U.S. Marshal comes to him with an unusual offer. Owen’s traitorous half-brother is wanted for murder. If Owen agrees to help the U.S. Marshal infiltrate the Texas winter camp of Confederate guerillas—and bring his brother to justice—Owen will have both his freedom and his revenge. But the risks are great. The price of getting caught is death.
 
Filled with raw human drama, blistering battle scenes, and vivid historical details, When the Missouri Ran Red is destined to be a classic in the field and a treasure for Civil War buffs.

Release date: September 28, 2021

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 384

Sample

THE SIX DAYS THAT FOLLOWED MY ENCOUNTER WITH THE DUSTY SURFACE of Ohio Avenue were a jumble of pain, spells of hot fever followed by bone-numbing chills, short periods of blurry wakefulness, and frightful nightmares. I slowly became aware I was abed in my sleeping room next to the alley door of the Wainwright Hotel. I distinctly remember the piercing pricks of Dr. Franklin Gribble’s needle as he knitted together the edges of the lengthy gouge in the skin of my skull. I slept through the scalp shaving that preceded the buttoning up. Then there was my aunt and stepmother, Emma Wainwright. She hovered over me with a damp cloth to sop my sweaty brow when the fever gripped me and with a handy blanket when my teeth chattered.

The pain of my stitched scalp, the bullet groove in the bone of my head, and the hurt arising from the hoof-clenched, swollen flesh of my trampled thigh persisted like constant toothaches, forcing me to bite my lip to keep from shouting out whenever I so much as twitched anywhere. Though I had no diagnosis from Dr. Gribble to confirm it, I suspected in my more lucid moments the nightmares besieging my fretful sleep were birthed by the brain-jarring strike of Lance’s bullet. Scary dreams of whippings by my father, Lucien Wainwright, roused a tingling feeling in the narrow, ridged scars lining my back ribs. During a feverish spell, I swear I felt Lance’s hands round my neck as I relived his near drowning of me in the watering trough after Shep attacked him defending me. My mother’s screams for Lance to stop brought me bolt upright in my blankets.

I awakened with tear-wet cheeks reliving my mother’s burial in glorious spring sunshine, an event foreshadowed by her telling my ten-year-old ears her passing was okay since she had brought me into the world, a sentiment I was still trying to decipher. I experienced a dead heart the night I dreamed of the execution of my father in our dooryard by the Union militia that falsely accused him of being a Southern-leaning slaver. And looming over every torturous detail that intruded on my healing rest was the stark, hateful image of Lance’s face as he murdered Shep.

I swear the Almighty blessed the seventh morning of my recovery. I came awake with a clear mind with bearable pain and hungrier than a bear fresh out of hibernation, having survived till then on meager sips of water and meat broth. Aunt Emma, God love her, was primed and ready with a bowl of soft-boiled eggs and crumbled bread, thin slices of fried ham, and coffee poured from a steaming pot. My stomach, never a stranger to anything that could be chewed and swallowed, shared my delight.

A pleased Aunt Emma observed, “I can swear to your uncle he needn’t fear you’ll be laid up till first frost. That man is a worrier, nephew. He thinks the future of his enterprises rests on your shoulders.”

I ignored Aunt Emma’s motherly concern that too much was being asked of me. I took considerable pride in Uncle Purse’s belief and trust in me. From my deposit on his doorstep by Father’s killers a week past my fourteenth birthday, I strove to make myself worthy of Uncle’s support and care. No work was beneath me, whether that of the janitor, chambermaid, desk clerk, dining-hall potato peeler, stable hand, blacksmith, farrier, carpenter, or, in the last year, assistant bookkeeper. Whatever Uncle’s combination hotel, public dining room, blacksmith forge, and public livery barn demanded of me, I provided, for a bountiful table, soft bed, and encouraging words are mighty scarce commodities for many of God’s two-legged creatures.

Nor had I missed a weekly session with my hired tutor, Master Dominic Schofield. How could I? What other lad in Sedalia not born a lawyer’s or merchant’s son was privately schooled year round in the classics, mathematics, proper grammar, and history? To quote Sam Benson, Uncle’s livery boss, I was the son the childless Purse and Emma Wainwright had surrendered any hope of having, and Uncle was determined to raise me proper without ever laying a belt or whip on me.

Aunt Emma spoke slowly, “I think you were too feverish to grasp what I said earlier. Sam and your uncle buried Shep in the far corner of the garden. Knowing how much you thought of that dog, Sam made a cross for the grave and painted his name on it. You best thank Sam first chance you have.”

I calmly accepted her news regarding Shep’s ultimate fate. I’d already shed sad tears over him in the dark of night, the sudden thud of his limp body atop my chest telling me he was gone from this earth.

Aunt Emma bit her lip and said, “I don’t know how much you recall from being near shot to death, but U.S. Marshal Bannister is mighty anxious to talk at you. He has some crazy notion you might be able to identify the robber that killed Shep instead of you. I don’t know how that could be true. Madge Wilson said he had a bandana tied across his face when he galloped past her. She claims all three robbers covered their faces. Madge might be Sedalia’s chief gossip, but there’s nothing wrong with her eyesight.”

Madge Wilson’s assertion aside, there was no mistaking what I’d seen. In all the excitement, Lance must have pulled down his bandana long enough for me to recognize him and then hid his face again as he made his escape. Somebody had witnessed him do so and that word had reached Marshal Bannister. Was I the only bystander who could identify any of the outlaws? Would I ever be free of Lance and his unbridled temper?

Aunt Emma’s next words clarified how critical identifying the robbers was to Marshal Bannister, the last bastion of public law in the midst of the military and local civil war pitting soldier against soldier and neighbor against neighbor throughout the state of Missouri. “It isn’t just the robbers making off with two thousand dollars that has the marshal riled up, it’s their killing of Homer Spain, the clerk at Kellerman Mercantile. He wasn’t even armed.”

“When was Marshal Bannister here?”

“He’s been by three times. Last time was yesterday afternoon. You were sound asleep. I told him he could check back this morning, and if you were awake and not in too much pain, he could talk with you for a few minutes . . . no more. That’s Dr. Gribble’s standing orders for family and visitors.”

I made no mention of what I could reveal to Marshal Bannister, and Aunt Emma, thankfully, didn’t ask. Much as I disliked Lance, spreading the word he might be a murderer smelled of family betrayal, even when it concerned a bastard of a half brother. Marshal Bannister could break that news when he saw fit.

Aunt Emma left with her breakfast tray. The coffeepot was still warm when I heard voices in the hotel lobby. Measured footfalls preceded the sight of U.S. Marshal Forge Bannister’s broad-shouldered, well-muscled body filling the doorway of my room. Bannister was dressed in black, as usual, and the pearl handle of the holstered revolver on his right hip protruded from beneath his suit coat. His tall boots were scuffed and worn down at the heel. However, his starched white shirt and collar, black string tie, ruddy features, neatly trimmed Vandyke beard and mustache, along with the deep tenor of his “Good morning, Owen,” lent him the authoritative presence of a judge ascending the bench.

We weren’t strangers. Forge Bannister stalled his bay gelding in our hotel livery whenever Federal business brought him to Pettis County from his office in Kansas City. The marshal preferred traveling on horseback to the bone-jarring ride of the Missouri Pacific Railroad’s passenger cars. Rumor had it Bannister’s half-blood Osage deputy he paid from his own pocket, John L. Whitefeather, actually dreaded mounting the smoking train. John L.’s seal-brown mare was, of course, also welcome to hotel oats, shoeing, and currying.

Whitefeather was two-thirds the size of his boss, but his fierce countenance, dark liquid eyes, and flintlock long rifle kept his fellow men, regardless of color, from teasing him about his mother having named him after John the Apostle in the Bible and adding a meaningless middle initial to give him as much of a white name as possible. I wondered what the fair-skinned lawman and half-blood man hunter discussed over nightly campfires other than the white, black, and red fugitives they were seeking.

I greeted my guest with a polite “Good morning, sir” and pointed at the plain wooden chair beside my bed. Marshal Bannister seated himself and perched his town hat, a black derby, on a knee. “How are the wounds healing?”

I was glad I knew Marshal Bannister well enough that I wasn’t nervous around him. Had he been after me with an arrest warrant in hand, I would have been quaking. “Well enough. Dr. Gribble believes I’ll make a complete recovery, sir.”

“That’s great news. I’d hate to lose a promising young man to complications after he’s lucky enough to survive a close call with a bullet.” From there, the Federal peace officer in Bannister came to the fore. “I’m interested in talking about your confrontation with the robber that shot your dog. Tell me exactly what you remember.”

I saw no need to expose the youthful chivalry that had prompted me to bolt from the hotel. “I heard gunfire and rushed out to have a look-see, like everyone else. I caught a bullet alongside the head and landed on my rump in the street. Next thing, there was a horse towering over me and I was staring down the barrel of a pistol. Then the robber shot my dog and rode off.”

Forge Bannister shifted his weight in the chair. Steel-gray eyes bored into me. “That pretty much matches what the other witnesses said, leastways those that weren’t frightened half out of their wits. Now, allowing as how that blow to the head might have messed with your memory some, listen close and tell me if there’s any smidgen of truth to what old Twig Logan claims he saw.”

I once heard Sam Benson say that if Marshal Forge Bannister ever beat around the bush when it came to pursuing his official duties, it would be a damn short hike. He certainly hadn’t raised much dust so far.

“Old Twig was headed for his morning breakfast at Stone’s Café. He was on the far side of the hotel’s front porch when all hell broke loose. He made himself as small as he could, but never looked away from the street. He says the robber pulled his red bandana down, called out to you, and leaned from the saddle so you could see his face, then said something to you after he shot your dog . . . something personal like. Is Twig embellishing things or telling the truth?”

Those eyes shone in the light pouring through the window above my bed. It was like being staked to the ground. Truth was, much as it surprised me at first, I feared Bannister’s wrath if he learned later I had lied to him more than I did what grief Lance might heap on me if he learned I’d sicced the law on him. Maybe I had grown as much in smarts as I had in height and strength since moving under Uncle Purse’s roof.

I swallowed to steady my voice and said, “Twig’s telling it straight. That’s what happened.” I averted my eyes and confessed. “The robber that killed Shep was Lance Wainwright, my half brother.”

A brief silence made a tomb of my room. “No need to be ashamed,” Bannister finally said. “Lance isn’t exactly a candidate for sainthood.”

Lance’s life after he had run off to escape Father’s waspish tongue and the lash of his whip was a blank slate to me. Bannister’s iron gaze seemed to have softened somewhat with my open support of Twig’s testimony, and, goaded by curiosity, I summoned the courage to say, “Lance left our home place seven years ago. Has he been in trouble with the law before this robbery?”

“Never pursued him personally, but I heard of his doings from two prisoners hoping to escape the hanging noose. He’s become a secesh bushwhacker. Those murdering bastards aren’t hard to spot. At least two dozen witnesses, mostly family members of those they’ve shot, often as not in cold blood, have described them to me. They like to pin up one side of their hat brims with silver crescents decorated with either feathers or squirrel tails. They favor loose-fitting hunting shirts, with garlands of red and blue flowers embroidered across the front and around the cuffs, and knee-high boots sporting big Mexican spurs. They wear a pistol belt with two holstered revolvers, often carry two more revolvers thrust behind the belt or stashed in saddle holsters, and pack spare cylinders for their revolvers in the big pockets of their hunting shirts.”

Bannister let me soak that much in, sucked air through his teeth, and continued, saying, “Lee Caswell, the gunsmith, was in the mercantile at the time of the robbery. He informed me the bushwhackers’ handguns were Colt Navy revolvers. Missouri bushwhackers prefer rapid-fire weapons instead of a soldier’s slower-loading long gun, and they’ve learned the Colt Navy is the most reliable and accurate pistol available. Hell’s bells, I carry one myself. Does any of this general description fit your half brother?”

“The hat and shirt do. The only thing I remember about his revolver was the muzzle looked bigger than the mouth of a cannon. Everything happened so fast, the rest is a blur. I didn’t recall the red bandana round Lance’s neck till you mentioned it.”

Bannister loosed a big sigh. “How well you got along with your half brother is a family issue, but killing an unarmed civilian during a robbery wearing civilian clothes won’t be construed as an act of war by the Union Army. It’s plain murder, and, unfortunately for him, Lance was also the sole robber who had flame-red hair like you. Once I report your firsthand identification of Lance to Judge Hiram Appleby in Kansas City, a warrant will be issued for his arrest. Whether we catch him now or after the war ends, he’ll be hung.”

Lance and I hadn’t shared much in common besides family blood and the infamous red hair common to Wainwright males. His height exceeded six feet by three inches, while mine fell three inches short. Though my shoulders, chest, and arms weren’t those of the “shitty, runty” ten-year-old lad he’d remembered, a lad yet to wield a hammer in the Wainwright Hotel blacksmithing shop, Lance still outsized me in mass and muscle. This made him a formidable foe in a physical confrontation. I was certain his confidence he could best me with fist or weapon of his choice at his whim had sparked his decision to scare me half to death rather than kill me when he had me helpless at the point of a gun. Same as Father, Lance bore hatred for those he deemed enemies with the passion of a sacred vow and wouldn’t hesitate to destroy a blood relative responsible for a murder warrant bearing his name.

“Do you think you can catch him?”

Marshal Bannister stroked his bearded chin. “It won’t be an easy chase. The bushwhackers he rides with roam at will. They claim they stand behind the Confederacy, avenging the killings of secesh sympathizers by Kansas Jayhawkers and Union militias. That’s hogwash. Lance’s crowd is no different than Bloody Bill Anderson’s bunch. They kill and rob in the name of the South for personal gain. I suspect they murder blue coats and Lincoln lovers with equal joy. Bushwhackers travel lightning fast and they have sympathizers in every corner of Missouri that hide and feed them. That’s what will make it hard to track down your half brother.”

Bannister smiled and laughed softly. “But all the odds aren’t on his side of the ledger. Mr. Kellerman has tendered a five-hundred-dollar reward to anyone providing information resulting in the arrest of the robber who murdered his store clerk, and the public will know who that man is, once the newspapers get wind of our warrant. We have more Union patrols than ever scouring the rough hill country that bushwhackers prefer for their camps, wearing down their horses and making it harder for their sympathizers to assist them. And Whitefeather tracks for me, thank God. Any word of Lance’s whereabouts and he’ll be on the scent. Old John L. knows how to use the telegraph, when it’s working, and messages via train conductors, when it’s not, to stay in touch with my office.”

Marshal Bannister palmed his derby hat from his knee and stood. “I’ll not tax you further. I don’t need another reminder from the lady in charge how important your rest is, and I have important news for Mr. Kellerman regarding his reward money. You may have to identify Lance in a courtroom in the future, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Thanks for your honesty, Owen. I find it quite admirable in these years of misplaced and misguided loyalties.”

U.S. Marshal Forge Bannister’s broad frame filled my doorway a second time and he was gone down the hallway. Much as I found the lawman’s confidence regarding Lance’s capture credible, it didn’t come close to allaying my fear of my half brother. If Lance truly wanted my scalp, he would come for it alone, in the dark or in broad daylight when I least expected it. I had every intention of talking with my uncle yet that day. With me fast approaching the Union draft age of eighteen, he’d had Sam Benson teach me to shoot and it was high time I kept a loaded weapon handy.

The wrath and danger of Missouri’s long, bloody guerilla war had barged within a step of the Wainwright threshold.

I fell into an exhausted sleep wondering how long we could keep it at bay.

MY SECOND VISITOR SHOWED ON THE TENTH DAY OF MY RECOVERY. By then, I was using the outhouse with the help of Sam Benson as protection against a fall instead of the thunder jug under my bed. Aunt Emma was comfortable I was beyond blurting a cutting remark more genteel souls might not attribute to the blow on the head I’d suffered.

Without my bidding, Aunt Emma prepared for my second caller by dusting the exposed surfaces of my room with a damp cloth, having Sam Benson mop the floor, opening the windows to freshen the air, changing the bedclothes, dressing me in a laundered nightshirt, shaving me for the first time ever, and placing a vase of cut flowers on the book stand flanking my bed. I was certain less labor had been devoted to the mating of kings and queens in overseas kingdoms, but personal embarrassment was Aunt Emma’s perpetual enemy.

The squeaky opening of the alley door at the rear of the hotel and a sharp rap on my bedroom door had me believing Sam Benson was returning from the livery for some unknown reason, as I was expecting my female guest to arrive via the lobby out front with Aunt Emma escorting her. The door opened before I could speak.

Not a trace of surprise showed on the face of Laura Kellerman. Her sparkling blue eyes surveyed my room with a swift roundabout gaze and settled on me, not noticing, I hoped, the blush warming my cheeks and neck. I cursed under my breath; so much for welcoming the first young female to visit my private quarters with more maturity than that of a ten-year-old.

She twirled the handle of her lavender parasol in her hands, smiled, and said a little breathlessly, “Good morning, Owen. You don’t know how happy I am that you are well enough to see me. I sincerely feared for your life.”

Lavender flowers dotted her white, high-collared, full-skirted dress. Her black hair was piled atop her head. She was a young female whose features—smooth forehead, prominent cheekbones, slightly aquiline nose, full-lipped mouth, white teeth, and firm chin—complemented each other with a perfection that gifted her with a startling beauty that made a man feel he was staring every time he looked at her.

Like you would expect from a male awed by her mere presence, my jaw locked. That wasn’t the worst thing that could have happened to me, for in those seemingly long seconds of silence, I noticed her face shared a smidgen of my blush and her ample breasts were lifting and falling from what had to be nervous excitement on our part. She wasn’t as calm and collected visiting me in blanket-covered bedclothes alone in my room as I’d first thought.

I started with what I was least likely to mumble. “Dr. Gribble believes I’ll make a full recovery.”

Wanting her to linger, I pointed to my guest chair. She nodded and seated herself. “Believe me, that’s the only good news anyone has heard since the murder of poor Mr. Spain. We miss him terribly at the mercantile. He had no family here and never missed a day of work. He kept the inventory for the general store and my millinery shop. He taught me the hardware trade to keep me busy when female customers were scarce, which happens, since the ladies buy with the seasons. He made the freighters aware of me. He demanded they mind their manners with me about.”

The Kellerman Mercantile was next door to the Buckhorn Brothers Warehouse that supplied freighting companies with bulk goods for the overland haul to the far Southwest and Santa Fe. I had observed bushy-bearded, hard-fatted bullwhackers in their wide-brimmed slouch hats shopping at Kellermans while they waited for their enormous six-yoke wagons to be loaded. The respect that rough lot showed Laura Kellerman was indeed quite extraordinary. Had she visited their campgrounds on Flat Creek, south of town, I had no doubt for the price of a sweet smile they would have knelt on a knee and offered her a mug of their habitual brew, a mixture of whiskey and New Orleans molasses, and a plate of their steady diet, bread and bacon.

Hesitation and shyness behind me, there were questions I wanted to ask her and I seized the opportunity. “Where were you when Mr. Spain was killed? Were you in the mercantile?”

“No, at the first shots, Mr. Parker grabbed hold of me and practically carried me into his butcher shop and guarded the door with a shotgun. He let me go to you, once the last robber was out of sight up the street. The side of your head was covered with blood.”

Her lip trembled as she recalled what had to have been a shocking scene for her. “I was certain you were dead, till you moaned. Lucky for you, Dr. Gribble was in his office above Harmon’s Grocery. He had you brought straight here to your room. Your aunt stopped me in the lobby. She promised she’d send word about you, and she did later that day, and every day since, God bless her.”

I was impressed by her sincere interest in my condition. Maybe her feelings for me went deeper than I had dared imagine. I’d never had an opportunity to properly court her. I’d managed snatches of conversation with her while I shopped at Kellerman’s for the hotel, saddling and unsaddling the riding horse her father stabled at the hotel livery, and on those occasions her widowed father treated her to dinner at the hotel dining room. Truth be known, given how little time I’d spent with her, and her being two years older, what she felt for me might be nothing more than brotherly love, if not mere affection, which I dreaded and refused to countenance.

Wanting to prolong her visit, I asked, “Exactly what happened inside the mercantile? Was your father with Mr. Spain when the robbers appeared?”

“Yes, he was in his office in the rear. Mr. Spain had just opened for the day. The bandits confronted Mr. Spain, and Father heard them demand he open the safe in the corner behind the counter. Mr. Spain must have hesitated, because they shot him. Just killed him like you’d stomp on a bug.”

A tear ran from the corner of her eye and she wiped her cheek with the side of her hand. “Before Father had a chance to pull the revolver he hides in his desk, one of the robbers barged into his office, trained his gun on him, and warned if he didn’t want to join the old geezer out front in the grave, he better open the safe. Father always says no amount of money is worth your life. He opened the safe and put all the money in the stolen mailbags they handed him. Marshal Bannister claims the robbers had to know in advance Father and Mr. Spain would likely be alone in the store at opening hour and where the safe was. He said killing Mr. Spain spurred Father to act quickly, and they were back in the saddle and gone before the men in town realized what was happening and armed themselves. He called the robbery slick, professional thievery.”

I broached the subject I hated to introduce. “And it was my half brother that murdered Mr. Spain.”

Her head dipped and she fiddled with the handle of her parasol. She looked up, her eyes misty, and said, “And that presents a problem we have to deal with.”

“How’s that?”

“Father is so angry and upset, he doesn’t even want me speaking to you. I believe he worries you might carry the same bad blood as your half brother. I reminded him that you were the one that identified Lance, but that didn’t seem to matter to him. I wouldn’t be surprised if he moved my riding horse to a different stable. You have to understand how protective Father is of me. He has accounted for every minute of my time since Mother died while he was away on business. He claims my happiness is his paramount goal.”

Her sincere concern about our possibly losing touch with one another offset her father’s unfair judgment of me enough that I was able to keep my temper in check. I needed to avoid hot, rash words that would confirm Stuart Kellerman’s sudden decision that Owen Wainwright’s company was no longer in the best interest of his daughter.

“Is that why you came to the back door?”

“Yes, I told Father I was picking up a new bridle for Jasper at Walker’s Harness Shop. I went around the block to make sure he wouldn’t hear of my visiting the hotel. There are a lot of curious eyes and loose tongues in Sedalia.”

I hated her having to sneak about, but it might prove nigh impossible for us to meet otherwise if her father moved her horse to a different stable, forbade her to wait on me at his mercantile, and ceased dining at the hotel with her.

She shot to her feet. “I best move along. I haven’t picked up Jasper’s bridle yet, and Father will get suspicious if I’m gone overly long.”

Imagine my surprise when Laura Kellerman, the proper young lady, stepped to the side of my bed, leaned over, and kissed me flush on the mouth. It was the first time we’d ever touched each other. I mean, we’d never so much as shaken hands before.

I will confess to the following: the softness of her lips, the smell of her, the brush of her breast against my arm, and the length of her kiss convinced me in a flash that I wanted more of all of that, and sooner rather than later. She ignited a rapturous physical hunger that jarred every nerve in my body. My dreams had not been wild imaginings. The real thing was much better by a whopping margin.

Somehow in my stunned blissful state, I let her depart, in a rustle of her skirts, without saying good-bye, but the slight sniffle I heard as she closed the door to my room told me social amenities weren’t foremost in her mind either.

My excitement flagged as my thoughts turned to her father again. Stuart Kellerman was now a major obstacle in any attempt to romance his daughter. He could readily point out that I was a young man with limited-to-no prospects. I resided with an uncle and aunt who allowed me to work for my room and board. I had no savings or any form of legitimate inheritance awaiting me. My personal property amounted to my clothes, boots, a few books, a pocketknife, and two fishing poles. I possessed a good mind, strong body, and willingness to undertake whatever task needed doing, but so did many other young males with more promising futures.

Looking down the road, had I the sense God gave rabbits, I had better jump at Master Schofield’s offer to train me to read for the law. My hired tutor believed I had the brains and common sense required of a lawyer, and I wasn’t afraid of book learning. He stressed that in any of the many towns he’d visited in his teaching career, if there was but one brick house, a learned man who practiced law owned it.

Vowing to discuss a legal career with Master Schofield on the morrow, I endured a restless night early on, the warmth of Laura Kellerman’s kiss vying with anger over Lance’s latest intrusion into my affairs. I finally slept after reminding myself that no man can predict whether the road the Lord has laid out for him will be smooth . . . or filled with ruts.

He could only pray he was up to the challenge.

And I did.

IN ANOTHER WEEK I WAS OUT AND ABOUT, SLOWLY RESUMING MY chores. I wore a cap to hide the stitches in my scalp till the hair grew back, a concession to male vanity I freely acknowledge. The number of people who insisted on expressing their condolences for my loss of Shep at the hands of a bushwhacking robber and murderer—without any mention of the guilty party’s name—shocked and pleased me. The sympathizers did not include Stuart Kellerman on the one night he dined alone at the hotel. His bare “hello” was as frigid as a frozen lake frog’s ass.

One of the two occasions on which. . .