Divided Heart Read online

  Except it contained Hattie, so in that respect, Ramsden had everything.

  The stagecoach pulled up to the saloon and left behind a man who looked as if he’d gotten off in the wrong town. He was an older fellow with white hair, a white cutaway jacket, and splatter-dashes. He took a few hesitant steps looking for something but not knowing where to start. “Excuse me, sir.” He raised a hand, flagging a man he had something in common with: a three-piece suit. But the suit Nate was wearing wasn’t as fine as this man’s. This man wore the apparel of a true gentleman.

  The details of his satin lapel, the scrolled silver handle on his cane, and an engraved gold chain watch he consulted as he approached Nate revealed the gentleman was not only a man of means—but of considerable means.

  “I say, excuse me. I’m looking for someone.” His Georgian accent divulged he’d come a long way looking for that someone.

  Nate couldn’t help but snicker. “Are you sure you have the right town?”

  “This is Ramsden, isn’t it?”

  “It is.”

  “I’m looking for a woman.”

  “Aren’t we all?” Nate laughed lightly. “If you’re looking for a woman, Ramsden is the wrong place to find one. There aren’t many around.”

  The man chuckled. “No, you don’t understand, sir. You see, I’m looking for one woman in particular. I understand she lives here in Ramsden.”

  Nate knew of no woman who had anything in common with a man like this. Perhaps she was someone who’d moved in while he was away. But why would such a significant woman move to such an insignificant town? “She must be very ‘particular’ indeed.”

  “Indeed she is,” the gentleman said. “Perhaps you may know her. Her name is Miss Henrietta Brown.”

  Nate’s blood stopped pumping. He’d heard that name only once before, and long ago at that, because the woman was better known by another name.

  Hattie?

  14

  What could a Southern gentleman possibly want with Hattie?

  Zachariah was keeping a close eye on him and the stranger.

  Nate feigned a cordial smile. “If you don’t mind me asking, what would a man like you want from a woman from a place like this?”

  “It’s a matter of a personal nature,” the gentleman said. “You understand.”

  Nate understood what “a personal nature” between a beautiful woman and a rich man twice her age could mean. From beau to benevolence to blackmail. “I’m sorry, I can’t help you.” He nodded toward Zachariah. “But you might try the sheriff.” Nate could have choked on his own words, but Zachariah would have Hattie’s best interests in mind.

  There were now two men in Hattie’s life. They appeared to have nothing in common—aside from their interest in Hattie.

  The gentleman appeared to be mild-mannered enough—but then again, so did the Reverend. Nate could only handle the matter he’d already set his mind on, the Reverend. Evidence. He needed something to shove in front of Zachariah’s face so he’d arrest him. And Nate would look for that something while the Reverend was conducting Sunday service.

  ***

  “‘It is well, it is well with my soul.’”

  Sunlight poured through the windows of the church. The pews were full, and the voices almost drowned out the fine music Lillian was playing on the piano.

  Although the words of a hymn about peace and assurance came out of Hattie’s mouth, her mind was more on the lines of fang and claw.

  She couldn’t deny that Nate’s return had awakened her yearning to marry him. All her praying hadn’t made her feelings for him go away. With Nate being so close, I’m fighting every minute from wanting to run to him, so…what do I do, Lord? She’d grown comfortable being alone, because he was the only man she’d ever wanted. Maybe if I put my all into falling in love with a Godly man ... someone I can trust to be faithful…then maybe God would help her with the rest by helping her forget Nate.

  There were only two eligible bachelors—Clayton and the Reverend. Clayton, being twenty years older, left her with only one option. She’d have to sink her fangs and claws into the Reverend. Those weren’t comely thoughts for a Christian woman. Besides, didn’t everyone in town think she and the Reverend should get married?

  Her prey stood behind the pulpit, singing with vigor, his mouth wide and his eyeglasses halfway down his nose. He’s not exactly what a woman would deem the knight-in-shining-armor type, Lord, but there’s got to be something savory about him—if You’d please accommodate by showing me what it is.

  He’s a lanky kind of tall and a gangly kind of slim.

  No, that didn’t whet her appetite. Let’s look for something else, Lord.

  Hair. He had a nice thick head of dark brown hair—if he’d just part it on the side instead of in the middle so his cowlick wouldn’t stand straight up dead center on his crown like the tail of a surprised coonhound.

  It was impossible to be attracted to him after seeing Nate. So…maybe I’m approaching this all wrong. Maybe the trick is to make myself less attracted to Nate… She glanced from the Reverend to Lillian, up front, playing the piano. Lillian was a pretty little thing, soft-spoken and refined, a real lady straight from England. In fact, with a set of wings on her back she could have been a fairy princess. She and Nate would have looked fine together, and apparently Nate thought so too, since she was the woman he’d gotten engaged to instead of Hattie.

  Her blood started boiling with righteous anger. She didn’t want to hate Nate, she just wanted to be good and mad at him, and so she turned up the fire by imagining Lillian and Nate holding hands. The anger rose from her toes to her torso, and when she could taste it on her tongue, she looked back at the Reverend, and smiled. That did the trick, Lord. The Reverend does look a bit tastier.

  Or at least, a little less sour.

  ~*~

  What are you hiding, Reverend?

  Nate squatted beneath a window. He’d waited for everyone to pour into the church, including his mother, Zachariah and his family, and Hattie. Finally, the door had closed, and as they sang the opening hymn, Nate slipped around the back to the parsonage.

  He tried the door. Locked. He tried a window. It wouldn’t budge. He tried another. No one bolts up their houses, not in this quiet town. The Reverend was definitely hiding something.

  “‘Whatever my lot…’”

  Nate had an opportunity to make some noise before the song ended. He wrapped his coat around a rock to mute the crash, and broke a window. Had anyone heard? His question was answered with the refrain.

  “‘It is well…’”

  He kicked out the shards, climbed in and landed beside the stove. The kitchen consisted of a simple square table with two chairs neatly tucked beneath, and a wall of shelves. The top shelf held canned goods lined up according to contents. The second shelf held a rack displaying four dishes with a blue floral design and four matching cups, all with their handles facing right. The third shelf held one pot and two pans. A sack of flour and a sack of beans sat on a clean floor. The man epitomized the expression “Cleanliness is next to Godliness.” It was tidy—but offered no good place to hide something.

  What exactly did Nate expect to find?

  Two doors led off the kitchen. One door was left opened, and the other was closed. He gripped the handle of the closed door.

  Another meticulously clean room. A neatly-made bed, clothes buttoned and hung on pegs, and a dresser draped with a doily. Nate ran his finger over the dresser. Not even a speck of dust. He opened a drawer to find a row of folded socks. He’d never seen a man—or a woman for that matter—this neat.

  If he touched anything, the Reverend would know someone had been here. But with the window broken and glass on the floor…

  Nate rummaged through socks and folded shirts in drawer after drawer, tossing the contents. Only clothes. He pushed the dresser to see if something might be hidden beneath. Not even dust.

  “‘It is well…’” The song rang out as though t
he clever Reverend mocked him.

  The hymn ended, but Nate wouldn’t abandon his quest. I know it’s in here, and I’m going to find it.

  The only other room housed a walnut bookcase and a desk. A typical preacher’s office. On top of the desk lay a closed, leather-bound Bible, the spine a little frayed from use. A fountain pen rested in its stand beside a closed ink jar. Centered on the desk, slightly tilted, a piece of paper listed several Bible verses written out with the skill of a calligrapher.

  Nate searched through the desk drawers but only found a pile of sermons stacked in alphabetical order. He snatched a latched box. Could this be where that something was hidden? He unhooked the latch and peeled back the hinged lid.

  A spare ink bottle.

  I’m getting nowhere. The Reverend’s secret is hidden somewhere within reach—but where? Think.

  Except for the damage Nate had done, nothing was out of place.

  In fact, the Reverend was overly neat. Excessively organized. Exaggeratedly deliberate.

  Another old adage came to mind and kept repeating itself. A place for everything, and everything in its place. Whatever gave the Reverend away wasn’t hidden—it was properly organized. So how does one organize where to put something one wants to hide?

  Nate rubbed his jaw. A man can’t let go of his past. Hattie was Nate’s proof of that. You always come back to it. So what do you keep coming back to, Reverend? Nate panned the room until his gaze settled on the bookcase. However, instead of recklessly tossing the books off the shelves, he carefully read the spine of the books.

  The Pilgrim’s Progress. Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ. Bonifacius (Essays to Do Good). God’s Mercy Surmounting Man’s Cruelty. Book of Common Prayer. Hymnal. Sermons by John Wesley. Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. The Good Old—

  He looked back at the previous book.

  Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.

  He plucked the tome off the shelf. The book split open of its own accord and surrendered a piece of paper. Folded, yellowed, worn to the point it tore in the creases—it was exactly what Nate was looking for.

  A faded “Wanted Dead or Alive” poster submitted four sketched faces, among them the Reverend’s likeness, and underneath it the name Jacob “Jake” Cadwell. The caption on the poster read, “Krugar Gang.”

  Nate’s knees buckled with the memory of the night he’d run into the gang on his way into Ramsden. The elusive leader of this notorious gang had never stepped out of the shadows but Nate knew his name, Joe Krugar. Hattie’s bumbling beau belongs to a gang of cold-blooded killers. And Nate was the one who’d advertised for a clergyman and recklessly hired a wanted man.

  Nate noted two discrepancies between the poster in his hand and the ones he’d seen posted all over Kansas. The first discrepancy was in the amount of the reward. The poster on the train offered four thousand dollars. This one offered only two thousand. The smaller reward and well-worn folds suggested it was older. The second discrepancy was the number of gang members. This named five. The poster on the train named four. The man missing was the Reverend. Why?

  It seemed the Reverend was even more mysterious than Joe Krugar.

  ~*~

  When the hymn ended, Hattie sat down. No breeze came through the open windows, and so she fanned herself with her hymnal.

  The Reverend tapped his sermon into a neat stack. The pulpit was too short for him and he had to hunch forward to read. It wasn’t the most handsome posture, but one she decided to attribute to a more attractive trait—intelligence. Why did she think intelligence was so handsome? Because Nate was so smart. She fanned with the determination to get over him. Lord, even if You can help me fall in love with the Reverend, how am I going to get him to fall in love with me?

  Although he’d come around to offer his help, he never came courting. He talked a lot, but nothing romantic. Slow would be the best way to describe him, since it’d been seven whole years since they’d first met. Not that she’d done much to encourage him. But now that the matter came up… What’s he waiting for? An angel to smack him over the head and say, “Start courting the woman before she dies of old age, for Pete’s sake”? If a man’s piety was measured by his awkwardness around a woman, then the Reverend was as pious as they came. The Lord had to be behind her all the way on this. It’s time to yank this acquaintance up a notch.

  Just as the Reverend took a sip from a glass of water to clear his throat, he suddenly got butter-fingered. The water glass leaped above his head, and then started coming down. He caught the glass, but as he fumbled to hold onto it, water splashed all over. He groped, the glass slipped. He grabbed, it slid.

  Everyone sat paralyzed, watching helplessly.

  It was a fight to the very end—when the Reverend caught the glass an inch from disaster.

  A deacon gingerly took the glass from the Reverend’s hand.

  Everyone applauded the miracle that the glass didn’t break.

  The fight had taken its toll on the Reverend. His shoulders and hair were wet, and his eyeglasses, out of kilter across his face, were splayed with droplets. But the Reverend survived and so did the glass. Something else, however, didn’t make it. He peeled the limp mess of papers off his pulpit.

  “I’m afraid I…I suppose I could…excuse me… I have notes… I’ll just get them.” He pointed toward the parsonage and left.

  It was times like this that erased all Hattie’s suspicions that the Reverend could be anything other than a bungler. She snorted. And Nate thinks you’re a crack shot.

  ~*~

  Nate stood in the parsonage speculating about the Reverend’s current standing with the law. Had he been left out of the current “Wanted Dead or Alive” poster because the authorities thought he was dead? If that was so, then it was no wonder the man could hide in plain sight. And what better disguise than a white collar?

  Was he still involved with the gang? An informant or watchman, perhaps? Or maybe he was the leader. Was Joe Krugar even real?

  But Nate distinctly remembered the figure he’d seen that night of a small man. Is that why I encountered the gang? Are they coming to Ramsden looking for the Reverend? That raised even more questions. This isn’t a good place to stand around and think. It was time to leave. But when he turned to do just that, the door creaked.

  “Nate Powell,” the Reverend said. “I thought that might be you.”

  15

  Nate drew his gun, but the Reverend was as calm as a baby in his nanny’s arms.

  “Tell me something,” the Reverend said. “Do you make it a habit of sneaking around?”

  “No less than you—Cadwell.”

  Cadwell’s gaze lowered to the poster in Nate’s hand.

  “Family picture?”

  “I wish you hadn’t found that.” Cadwell took a step closer.

  Nate raised his gun.

  Cadwell held up his hands. “You know, Nate, I’ve got a church full of people waiting on me.”

  “You mean, a church full of people waiting on someone you’re not.”

  Cadwell’s calmness made it clear he’d been in similar predicaments before—and his freedom attested he’d gotten himself out of them. “I’d say if a man’s holding a gun, he’d better use it.”

  “I don’t need to shoot you. Not when I’ve got something better.” Nate glanced at the poster.

  Cadwell lunged, twisted his hand, and before Nate could blink, Cadwell was holding the gun. He flipped the pistol.

  Nate stood eye to eye with the barrel of his own gun. “I’d say if a man’s holding a gun, he’d better use it.” Nate challenged.

  “And I’d say, I don’t need to shoot you, either. Not when I’ve got something better.” Cadwell nodded toward the wall. “I’ve got half the town and the sheriff in that room. Imagine what would happen if I called for help. Who do you think the sheriff’ll listen to? The outcast standing in the broken glass from the window he smashed, or the man who’s been preaching to them for years? I don’t know everythin
g about you, Nate, but seeing you sneaking into town the other day told me everything I need to know.”

  Nate’s jaw tensed.

  The Reverend nudged the gun barrel toward the desk. “Now, put the poster in the drawer.”

  Nate had no choice. “I don’t care who you are, so long as you steer clear of Hattie. You can take that as a warning.”

  Cadwell fired the gun.

  Nate put a hand to his throat where the bullet breezed by, and a finger through a hole in his necktie. He swallowed. If ever there was a crack shot, that was it.

  “And you can take that as a warning to stay clear of me,” Cadwell said.

  There was a ruckus outside as everyone in the church came running.

  Zachariah got to the door first. “What’s going on here?” The look in his eyes after he glanced at the broken glass and then at Nate was enough to tell Nate he was going to the jailhouse.

  But for some reason, Cadwell headed it off. “Nate was just walking up to the church when I spotted his fine revolver and asked to see it. I’m afraid that when he handed it over to me, my finger got caught in the trigger, and….” His glance at the broken window finished the tale. Then, using a lot less grace than when he’d snatched it, he feigned almost dropping the gun as he offered it back to Nate.

  Nate holstered the gun, knowing fully well if he drew it on Cadwell, Zachariah and every man there would draw their guns on him.

  With or without a weapon, Cadwell had the upper hand. He fished some papers from the same drawer he’d made Nate put the poster in and closed the drawer slowly, as if to emphasize his advantage. Then he planted a firm hand on Nate’s shoulder. “I’m glad you could join us for church.”

  ~*~

  “‘Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.’” Hattie watched the Reverend’s glasses slide down his nose as he read from the Bible on his too-low pulpit.