Prairie Song Read Free Page B

drawn as if he were storming a well-armed fortress. All his men hurried after him. In the span of a hungry wolf’s howl, shouts echoed from the car to the waiting crowd. The people held their breath as more men rushed into the car, ready to hail some unheard bugle’s call to battle. Women clutched their children. Gamblers and farmers alike pulled guns from concealed places and took a step forward.
    Cherish stepped back, unable to hide the smile on her face and not wanting the others to see her joy. The jackals would have no prey to pull apart tonight.
    She caught the glimpse of a lone figure lifting himself up atop the car. His white shirt was milky in the night, and his black trousers clung like a second skin against his thin thighs. She studied the figure as he moved as silently as a shadow along the length of the car. No wounded man could have moved so, and the constant tilt of his head toward the car, where all the deputies were, told her he must be the priest who traded places with the bandit.
    Soundlessly, like a cat, he jumped from one car’s roof to another and disappeared into the sleeper. Silently, Cherish applauded the friar, for he had succeeded where she had failed. He’d saved a man’s life when she’d only talked.
    A few minutes later he jumped from the steps, adorned once more in robes. Cherish moved toward him and away from the angry voices still coming from the car.
    “You changed places with the wounded man.” Her words were spoken as fact, allowing no room for argument.
    “With your help,” the priest answered. “If you hadn’t spent a few minutes arguing with the deputy I never would have had time.”
    Cherish looked up. “Are you saying I was a part of his escape?” The meaning of his words sank full into her mind. These men were so anxious to hang someone, they might hang the accomplices as well. “Are you threatening me to keep me quiet?”
    “No.” Again his words were direct. “I’m thanking you for your help and asking you for your continued silence.” He raised his hand to her shoulder. “The man out there in the darkness is bleeding. I ask for your mercy. You have my word he doesn’t deserve the death these men have planned. Your silence will be all the help we need. No one will suspect I squeezed through the window and hung on in the darkness until all the deputies rushed into the car. They will simply think he got away while they were giving speeches.”
    His hand warmed her shoulder as his words touched her heart. “You have the face of the Virgin Mary. Do you have her compassion?”
    Studying his shadow-lined face, she guessed that he was not past his mid-twenties, but his eyes made him seem far older. He had cold gray eyes, frozen by seeing so much pain, perhaps. She wished she could talk with him more. If the priest had been present when the sheriff was shot, why would he now save the murderer’s life? “I saw nothing,” she whispered.
    He nodded and pulled his hand away as the crowd washed around them in a flash flood of disappointed, tired voices.
    In the moonlight she saw the priest’s left hand, pale against the night. Along his wrist were tiny scars identical to those she’d seen on the wounded man’s right arm. Confusion clouded her face as she looked up for an answer, but all he did was pull his robe sleeve lower to hide the tie that somehow bound him to a killer.
    “Good night, Miss Wyatt,” he whispered before he vanished, leaving Cherish to guess how he could possibly have known her name.

Chapter 3
     
    Grayson Kirkland watched Margaret Alexander storm across the street and enter the stable for the third time in as many days. He’d followed her ever since the sheriff told him about the telegram naming her as heir to Tobin Tyler’s house. Grayson was a Union officer assigned to Texas after the Civil War. His job was to check on any leads, no matter how slim, that might help the government discover the identity of members of a secret organization. But