He wasn’t sure what lay ahead anymore, since going back to his family wouldn’t be a possibility with a bounty on his head, but his uncle had already told him in no uncertain terms that he was no longer wanted at the ranch. Clearing his name wouldn’t change that. With money from the Pinkertons, he really could go to California. See the ocean waves crash against a beach.
But riding Nugget along the sunny shore was a dream far too indulgent in the dreary reality where his clothes were soaked and cold, and Cole hated his guts.
Cole didn’t need to know that he featured in Ned’s fantasy about a perfect life too. Naked, carefree, and more beautiful than any man Ned had seen, he lazed around on a beach, caressed by the sunshine. And in those dreams, he winked at Ned and held out his hand in invitation, with that roguish smile Ned found so irresistibly charming.
Instead of heading straight for the jail, as Ned had feared, Cole snuck into the narrow alley between the family house and a tailor’s shop before disappearing from sight.
God dammit.
“Wait for me,” Ned groaned, rushing through mud to catch up.
Cole didn’t bother to look back at him as he made his way over a low fence surrounding the backyard of the house, which was slightly less muddy than the street. Chickens clucked in a henhouse, the noise like gossip about to alarm everyone in town that the perpetrators of the brazen train robbery were here.
But nothing happened.
Ned stiffened when thunder rolled over the sky once more, but Cole was already through the fence on the other side and approached the back of the brick building, step after slow step, like a mountain lion on the prowl.
The light was on in the single window at the side of the jail, but while Ned only spotted a cupboard inside, an officer of the law was surely present. Perhaps even two, and they’d be wary of anything unsavory happening at their door. The rain Ned had resented became their ally because no one loitered in such weather, and its constant hum made footsteps hard to discern.
Ned had feared for his life during yesterday’s robbery, performing stunts he’d never imagined himself capable of. He’d run from a speeding locomotive, jumped off a railway bridge, and horseback. Here he was once more, just one day later, following Cole into the wolf den. Ned’s fate had been sealed from the moment they met. Every day he put out a fire, and another one burst into flames only for another one to burst into flames. And he was no longer sure whether he hadn’t passed the point of no return.
A part of him felt alive for the first time in years. The yearning for adventure his uncle always suppressed for Ned’s own good had been set free and spread its wings. It was now up to Ned to decide whether he’d return to the safety of the cage or risk his life for freedom, in a world where predators could so easily sink their claws into him and break his neck.
Ned’s foot slipped as he traversed the fence, but he managed to hold on to the planks and save himself from a humiliating fall. Once on the other side, he crossed the gap between the home and the jail and joined Cole, who kneeled in front of a flat, elongated window at the very bottom of the structure. He realized what it was when lightning revealed iron bars, and behind them—a man bruised so badly Ned hadn’t recognized him at first.
But it was Adam who clutched at the steel prongs in an effort to see them, since the cell was dark and located mostly underground. His face was damp with streaks of tears over black and blue skin, with one eye hidden by a swelling.
“They beat me up,” he whined with lips cracked so badly Ned winced in sympathy. “Is anyone else with you? It’s just the sheriff and deputy in there now. You could… you’d have the advantage of surprise.”
Ned kneeled by the bars, at loss over how they were supposed to get Adam out. And what would happen once Tom found out Adam had been disloyal. “Just us.”
Rainwater cascaded into the cell, adding to Adam’s misery, but he looked up at them with such hope Ned longed to storm into the sheriff’s office and risk everything to bring him to safety.
Adam shook his head, squeezing his hands on the bars until his knuckles were white. “I… I’m sorry. Forgive me. I talked. I thought I was made of tougher stuff, but I’m not.” His voice broke, and he rested his forehead against the muddy edge of the window, sobbing while the skies above roared.
If there were only two men in the office, Ned and Cole had a chance to take them on. A few weeks back, such a thing would have been inconceivable—pure savagery to serve just one’s own interest, but Adam Wild wasn’t a bad man. He hadn’t been born with much, and all the things he’d done riding with the Gotham Boys, though many of them criminal, had been born out of frustration. Honest work would not have allowed Adam to gain the status needed to compete for the hand of the woman he loved, so what was he to do? Give up on her or find alternative means of earning money. He’d chosen the latter, and that was where his hopes ended. In a damp cell, with blood soaking his clothes.