18

Logan gathered his solitaire cards from the ground and gave them a vigorous shuffle. Tension radiated up his forearms as he repeated the familiar motion twice more. His quarry should’ve been here by now. Logan glared up at a sun well past its zenith.

He’d expected to be home by now, sharing his discoveries with Eva. Basking in her awe of his investigative prowess. Or at least listening to her praise his mediocre carpentry skills at the cabin and enjoying whatever snack she’d chosen to tantalize him with that afternoon. Instead, he was stuck outside Ben Franklin, waiting for a lazy bootlegger to get around to making his delivery.

Seated beneath the low-hanging branches of an ancient oak, Logan was hidden from the path that wound toward the school building and the all-important outhouse at the back. An outhouse with lovely purple flowers on the door, no doubt painted by some overzealous schoolgirl. Yet the purple would make it easy coding for the system Miss Gilliam had described.

Logan dealt out another hand of cards, his eighth. He was down, two games to five, and losing didn’t help his mood any. He glanced at the empty path and scowled. Bring the whiskey, already. I’ve got better places to be and better company to keep.

School had let out an hour ago. The kids had tromped off. The schoolmaster had followed about thirty minutes later, getting into a smart black buggy and driving back toward town. He looked like he could have benefited from the exercise of walking the half mile, but his balding, hatless pate would have suffered without the protection of the buggy’s shaded top.

Logan picked up the ace of hearts he’d just turned over and set it aside. He moved the two of hearts to that new pile and flipped over the card beneath it to find the king of clubs. He frowned at the five cards stacked beneath the king, unable to move until the man on top got out of the way. And the king couldn’t get out of the way until a fresh path opened up, just as Logan couldn’t move until the bootlegger appeared. He could only guess what the bootlegger was waiting on. Christmas, probably.

A grunt rumbled in his chest as he flipped over the next card. Waiting needled his nerves, especially when the prize was within sight. He’d spent the last two and a half weeks working the tables and cozying up to the Ben Franklin locals at the Seven Ponies Saloon, preparing for the perfect moment to broach the subject of moonshine stills. That opportunity had finally presented itself last night.

He’d purposely lost a tidy sum to a braggart named Bellows, who loudly crowed over his victory, earning the disdain of the rest of the men at the table. Logan carefully exploited this contempt as he commiserated with the losers. A comment bemoaning the lack of strong drink available to wash away the pain of losing to such a sore winner was all it took to finagle an invitation to a jug party out behind the livery.

The livery owner—the second-highest loser for the night—had disappeared into the stable, then emerged with a jug labeled with a brown ribbon. Once uncorked, the jug was passed around, each man taking a swig. Logan blended with the rest, though he didn’t take more than the smallest of sips each time his turn came round. Had to keep his wits about him, after all.

When the party started to break up amid hearty belches and back-slapping, Logan tossed out an inquiry about how to acquire a jug of his own to take back to Pecan Gap. The livery owner, now in jolly good spirits, slapped Logan on the back and vowed to acquire a jug for his new friend. He collected an exorbitant price, no doubt pocketing a commission from the deal, then instructed Logan to take a room at the hotel for the night and wait for a message to be delivered.

The message hadn’t arrived until nearly noon, when a nondescript piece of paper was slipped under the door. The hotel clerk had known nothing about who delivered it, or at least nothing he was willing to admit. Jack Simmons, the liveryman, was the most likely culprit. Whoever it was, he’d kept the note brief. All that had been written on the paper was a time and location.

5 o’clock

Privy behind school

Logan had taken up his position at two o’clock, thirty minutes before class let out. The bootlegger would want to be long gone before the stated delivery time to avoid detection, yet not so early as to risk being noticed by schoolchildren walking home. Therefore, Logan had extrapolated that he’d make an appearance around four, which had come and gone—Logan dug out his pocket watch and flipped open the lid—thirty-five minutes ago.

Had he been swindled? Logan snapped the watch closed and stuffed it back into the inner pocket of his coat. The gambler outmaneuvered by a bunch of skunk-drunk yokels? Surely not. His fingers flexed, making the playing card edges dig into his palm. If no one showed in the next hour, he was going to drop by the livery and demand a refund.

Even as that thought crystalized in his mind, a man with a burlap sack slung over one shoulder emerged from the woods north of the schoolhouse.

Logan forfeited his solitaire game, gathered his cards, and stashed them in a pocket. Slowly, he rose from his seated position into a crouch and peered beneath the low-hanging branches.

This man looked taller than the one by the river. Thinner, too. And he limped slightly on his left leg. The man at the river had lumbered about, but he’d seemed equally unsteady on both legs while he’d struggled with Miss Gilliam. Tan hat instead of gray. Dark trousers and sloppy cotton shirt too nondescript to be helpful. No wagon to compare, either.

When the man reached the outhouse, he swung the sack off his right shoulder with a visible wince. He rubbed the sore joint and lifted his arm in a slow circle to stretch the muscles before opening the privy door and dragging his sack inside.

An injury, perhaps? From carrying a woman’s weight down to the river?

Logan didn’t think so. The man at the river had carried Miss Gilliam in front of him, which would be more likely to cause back spasms than a shoulder injury. Considering the amount of gray in this man’s scruffy beard, rheumatism was a more likely explanation. If getting around was difficult for him, it would explain why he’d been relying on his womenfolk to handle his deliveries.

Logan couldn’t say with absolute certainty, but he’d lay good odds that Miss Gilliam had been correct. Her stepfather had not been the one trying to kill her.

Still, he was a despicable creature. Logan’s upper lip twitched in disgust when Earl exited the outhouse after several minutes, stretching his fallen suspenders back over his shoulders and refastening the buttons on his trousers.

Really? He’d relieved himself in the very location where a paying customer was set to retrieve his goods? Not that a privy smelled particularly pleasant at any time, especially during the summer, but leaving a fresh deposit minutes before a collection couldn’t be good for business. Though, Logan had to admit that it gave him an excuse for being there, should anyone happen to see him.

Logan grimaced and held his position, waiting for his distributor to head back the way he’d come.

Only he didn’t. Instead, he let himself into the schoolhouse through the back door.

What was he up to? Logan shifted, itching to take a closer look, but he dared not leave his cover. This hand wasn’t over yet. He’d keep his cards close to his vest a little longer.

Less than a minute later, the firm sound of a door closing announced Earl’s departure out the front. Whatever he’d been doing, it hadn’t taken long.

Too curious to let it go, Logan took a quick peek at his watch. A little early, but he could make it work.

Abandoning his post, he ran as quietly as possible through the woods, circling back toward town. As slowly as Earl moved, outdistancing him wouldn’t be a problem. Staying hidden presented more of a challenge, but Logan kept to the trees as long as possible before slowing his pace and sauntering out to the road.

Keeping his stride loose-limbed and casual, Logan swung his arms and whistled an improvised tune to disguise his slightly labored breathing as he rounded the bend that would bring him into Earl’s path. Sure enough, halfway into the turn, the bootlegger limped into sight.

“Howdy.” Logan lifted his hat in greeting as he examined Earl.

Nothing seemed to have changed. No bulging pockets. No new items in his hand. Just the burlap sack. A sack that should have been empty yet remained flung over his shoulder.

Earl lifted his free hand to give a cursory tap to his hat brim and grunted something that could’ve been a greeting. Could’ve been a loud stomach growl, too. Hard to tell, even with two good ears. No wonder Miss Gilliam had so much trouble interpreting her stepfather’s communication.

Logan pointed his hat in the direction he was walking. “The schoolhouse down thisaway?”

“Yep.” Earl kept his head down.

Humorous, really, his weak attempts to remain anonymous. No sense making him nervous, though, so Logan slapped his hat back on his head and grinned like a simpleton. “Thanks!”

As Earl limped past, Logan turned, making a show of waving as he watched the older man go by. Something small and rectangular sat in the bottom of the sack. It could have been in there earlier with the jug and Logan just hadn’t noticed it from the greater distance, but his gut told him Earl had picked it up during his short tour of the schoolhouse.

Had Jack Simmons stashed the payment in a book and left it in the classroom? Possibly. But why not simply pocket the banknotes and leave the book behind? Something didn’t add up.

“Good day to ya,” Logan called, channeling Eva’s cheerful spirit as he backpedaled down the road.

Earl never turned, just raised a hand in silent farewell. Not even a grunt this time.

Logan let him go and kept his sedate pace all the way back to the schoolhouse. Once there, however, he accelerated his timetable. In the span of twenty minutes he’d collected the odiferous moonshine, buried it in a shallow grave beneath the oak tree he’d used for surveillance, and fetched Shamgar from the shady spot down by the stream a quarter mile from the schoolyard.

After mounting, Logan urged Shamgar into a canter. If he hurried, he might still make it back in time to pay a call on Eva before suppertime.

But when he rode onto the Hamilton homestead—odd that he’d started thinking of his father’s property in those terms—the chaos that met him pushed all thoughts of supper from his mind. Hezekiah was snorting and running between his pen and the back door. Zacharias was strapping on a gun belt, and Seth was arguing with a deaf woman about his asthma not stopping him from doing what must be done.

The one person Logan didn’t see was Eva.

The knot in his stomach hardened into a stone.