Uncle Liam stared at the stains on his clothes and the alcohol dripping from his steed’s mane in disbelief.
“Is your new employer providing you with a horse?” he asked through gritted teeth.
Blood drained from Ned’s face. He wouldn’t. Surely, he wouldn’t deny Ned his beloved Nugget.
“I fed that horse with a bottle, slept with him in the barn when he was sick. He might be your property, but I assumed—”
“You assume too much, boy!” Uncle Liam roared, and his own steed tapped its hooves against the dirt
A creak made both of them turn heads, and Ned smelled sulphur and smoke even before Cole leaned against him with the familiarity of an old friend. The lit match in his hand made Uncle Liam take half a step back, and Ned’s stomach twisted when he realized how much spirit there was on his uncle’s dusty clothes. This was a threat—silent yet as effective as a butcher knife pressed to the throat.
And, as had been established yesterday, Cole had no inhibitions.
Cole lit himself a cigarette and watched the little flame flicker in front of him, his free hand unexpectedly touching Ned between the shoulder blades to rest there, like a warm cat cuddling up to its owner.
It hit Ned like an anvil to the face that he’d never had another man touch him like this. His cousins didn’t fraternize with him much, neither did the ranch hands nor acquaintances from around Beaver Springs. And on the two cattle drives he’d participated in, he hadn’t cared for the company of men who, after a day’s work, smelled as bad as him. Cole acted as if he had the right to invade Ned’s space this way. The bitter tobacco smoke enveloped Ned and pulled him closer. His standoffish instinct was to shake off the touch, but if he wanted to befriend Cole, to find a way into the gang, didn’t it make sense to allow the closeness?
Uncle Liam snarled, infuriated by this indignity. “You’ll regret this, Ned. And you,” he stared daggers into Cole. “You have all of three minutes until I get my sons to fill your guts with lead.” With those words, he urged his horse to trot away, leaving Ned stunned.
“You better go,” Ned whispered, unable to force a louder sound out of his clenched windpipe. “I’ll meet you outside Beaver Springs at nightfall.”
Cole frowned and retracted his warm touch, the burning cigarette twitching between his lips. “You’ll really let him treat you like this?” he asked and grabbed the horn of his saddle, pulling himself up onto the back of his massive steed.
“You don’t understand my position here.”
From high up, Cole’s eyes burned Ned’s soul with their fire. “Told you already, it’s only your decision whether you’ll be a sheep or a wolf,” he said and his horse dashed forward, taking him behind the house at speed.
Ned clenched his fingers on the porch railing as sweat covered his back. He didn’t have any time to spare, did he? If he couldn’t make up his mind now, he ran the risk of Cole changing his mind on a whim and disappearing on him.
Ned dashed into the house.
“Where’s the fire?” Brianna called out to him from the kitchen, but he ignored her and ran for his room.
At least Rory wasn’t there to ask uncomfortable questions, because if he packed in the boy’s presence, those would be endless. Ned didn’t have time to spare, so his focus was on his most important possessions. A small mirror and the straight razor that had belonged to his father went into the carpetbag first, along with a change of clothes, and the money, but he stalled when his gaze wandered over the quilt covering his bed.
It used to be his mother’s and featured an elaborate pattern with elk, bison, and flowers. At the bottom of the image created with stitching and pieces of patterned fabric, it had a green background of several shades representing a forest but was dark blue at the top, with silver beads for stars. It had been a wedding gift from Mother’s friends, offered as a good luck charm before she’d set out west with her new family. It was the last thing Ned had left of her.
He folded it, thinking of the many times he’d sat with his mother under it as a child, protected by its warmth as they watched the stars above their little house in the woods. Up in the mountains, even the night sky had seemed brighter, and the constellations so easy to tell when his father had pointed them out.
Ned placed the quilt by the headboard, deciding against the desire to take it with him. There were bad people where he was going, and he didn’t want it getting damaged out in the elements either. The Pinkerton assignment wouldn’t last forever, and while his aunt and uncle might have been cross with him for going off on such a dangerous path, they would ensure this important keepsake was safe. He’d be back for it eventually.