He led the men hard. There were places where the trail was so narrow their horses could hardly move, but Angus didn’t slow down. He didn’t know what Austin had planned, but Angus was sure that he wasn’t going to allow someone else to marry the woman he wanted.

Angus glanced back now and then and saw that Mac was easily keeping up with him, but the two young soldiers were hanging on for dear life. They weren’t used to riding and certainly not accustomed to trails that were used mostly by animals.

An hour after sundown, he took pity on the boys and called a halt. Mac shook his head in disgust as the young men tumbled out of their saddles, sore and stiff and tired. Muttering that the young ones were weaklings, Mac gathered firewood while Angus slipped into the bushes and returned with three rabbits, which Mac put on spits over the fire.

“I’ll never be able to walk again,” Naps said. His red hair gleamed in the firelight.

“Good!” Angus said in an accent they could understand. “Maybe it’ll keep you away from Betsy Wellman.”

“Another jealous man,” Naps said, grimacing as he tried to sit down.

Angus looked at T.C., who was quiet, but his face showed that he was in just as much pain. “What about you? You think Betsy is the love of your life?”

“I like a woman who can read,” T.C. said as he held his hands out to the fire.

“Not all of us can spend our lives in a schoolroom,” Angus said in his thickest burr, his teeth held together.

“What he means,” Mac said slowly, so the young men could understand him, “is that if you want to stay alive, you’ll stay away from the colonel’s daughter.”

“But-” Naps began.

“Austin will have you killed,” Mac said.

“Like in the Bible,” T.C. said. They all looked at him, as though they hoped he’d tell one of his stories. But T.C. just shrugged. “King David wanted Bathsheba, so he sent her husband to the front of the war, where he was killed.”

When he said no more, the others were disappointed, and Angus looked at the young man hard. He’d been told that the reason Thomas Canon “T. C.” Connor had joined the army was because he’d been in love with a young woman in Williamsburg, but her father had married her off to a rich old man. T.C. had been roaming the new country since then, collecting plant specimens wherever he went. Angus didn’t know if the story was true or just gossip-and T.C. answered no question about his past.

“I think we need to get some rest,” Angus said. “I’ll take the first watch, then you.” He nodded at T.C. “Naps, then Mac, you take the last watch. At first light we’ll leave.”

“Could you tell us where we’re going?” Naps asked.

Angus hesitated, but then relented. “I think that Austin has arranged for Miss Wellman’s fiancé to be killed.”

Naps didn’t seem to hear anything but “fiancé.” “She’s engaged to someone else?”

Angus shook his head at the young man and gave Mac a glance to say that the boy would never learn. “Turn in, all of you. I’ll wake you when your time to watch comes.” He glared at Naps. “And let me tell you that your life won’t be worth much if you fall asleep on watch.”

Naps looked out into the darkness and shivered. “You don’t have to worry about me. This place scares me so much that I won’t be able to sleep at all.” Ten minutes later, he was snoring so loudly that Mac kicked him.

The next morning, before the sun was fully up, the four men rode out and Angus set a hard pace for them.

“Can this man take care of himself?” Mac asked when they stopped to rest the horses.

“No,” Angus said. “Wellman called him ‘effeminate.’ ”

“What does that mean?” Naps asked.

“Like a girl,” T.C. answered.

“Then Betsy won’t have any trouble choosing the right man,” Naps said, yet again turning everything back around to her.

Angus started to say something about the girl but didn’t. “Let’s go. I know where it’s most likely that the payroll wagon was ambushed.”

Minutes later, they were riding again, and when Angus saw smoke, he kicked his tired horse forward. “We may be too late,” he said over his shoulder.

When they were at the top of a ridge, Angus held up his hand for them to halt, and he slid off his horse to crouch down among the trees. Behind him, Mac made hand gestures to the young soldiers that they were to get down and be silent. Mac went to squat next to Angus.

Below them was what was left of the payroll wagon. It had been burned, and near it were the bodies of two soldiers.

“Where are the other guards?” Mac whispered.

“I’m not sure, but it’s my guess that Austin ordered the wagon to have only two guards.”

“An open invitation to thieves,” Mac said.

“Thieves and murder.”

“Do you think the preacher’s body is on the other side?”

“I don’t see it,” Angus said, “but I’m sure it’s nearby, and I’d lay money on it that he’s been scalped. Austin would want people to believe that the Indians did it.”

Mac didn’t let his face show his shock at what Angus was saying. “Something like this could cause a war. The payroll is from the government. Do you think Austin would risk that just for a common girl like Betsy?”

“I think he likes to win whatever he wants and he’ll use whatever methods he can,” Angus said. “I’ll take Welsch and go that way, you take Connor and come in from the south. Be careful and make as little noise as possible. The killers have probably taken the money and run, but maybe they’re still around. Take no chances.”

Mac nodded, then went back to tell the men, who were standing behind them rubbing their sore legs.

Angus went down the hill quietly, concealing his body in the bushes that grew along the way. Twice, Welsch skidded on the loose gravel, and both times Angus scowled at him.

When they reached the bottom of the hill, Angus motioned for Welsch to stay there and wait, and he looked relieved. Angus stealthily made his way around the burned wagon, glancing quickly at the two men on the ground to see if they were dead. His guess was that they’d been there for at least a day and a half, and he hoped he was wrong about the boy. Maybe the robbers took the payroll, killed the guards, and kidnapped the boy. If that was so then they were in the wrong place. By now the boy-if he was still alive-was many miles to the west, just as Wellman had said.

Angus hid behind some trees and looked about him. If the men had been dead for over a day, then the wagon had only recently been set on fire. That meant that someone had been there since the murders.

When he saw or heard no one, Angus stepped out of hiding and began to look around the wagon. There were faint footprints leading south, where he knew there was a river.

Quietly, his moccasins making no sound, Angus went back to Welsch, who was still sitting under the trees and waiting. “No one’s here but I don’t trust this place,” he said softly. “Get the others and I’ll meet you over there. See that big oak tree?”

“I don’t know an oak from a daisy,” Welsch said.

“Ask Connor. Go there and wait for me, and stay out of sight.”

“Gladly,” Welsch said as he stood up on his stiff legs.

It was thirty minutes before Angus met the other men in the shade of the oak tree.

Mac handed him a hardtack biscuit. “See anything?”

“Someone got away. There were four men who attacked the wagon, and they were all white. Indians walk lighter. There’s a bloody place where a wounded man lay for a while and it’s possible they thought he was dead.”

“Maybe he dragged himself off into the bushes.”

“I think so. You two ready to go?” Angus asked Welsch and Connor.

They nodded and minutes later the four of them were on horseback again, with Angus in the front. He was leaning over the saddle so far the other men didn’t see why he wasn’t unseated. He was looking at the ground, following the trail the wounded man had left behind.