Astrid huffed. “Maybe you should be the one not to fool yourself so you don’t get hurt.” With that, Astrid flipped over and faced the wall, her body rigid.

Ivy reckoned they both needed to take each other’s advice, but they were too stubborn to do it.

Chapter
10

A strange prickling on Jericho’s neck told him he wasn’t alone. He slowed the team and wagon and casually glanced around the gulch while stroking the trigger of the rifle on his lap. The gulch widened out just ahead, and the sawmill sat at the base of a cleared area less than half a mile away.

When Wyatt had started running short on lumber for the new building projects, Jericho had offered to go after the supplies. He wanted to help Wyatt. But more than that, he’d gotten wind of a couple of men working up at the sawmill who’d fought for the South. Apparently they were a rough breed, and he figured it wouldn’t hurt to talk to them. At the very least, they might be able to direct him to others in the area who’d taken sides with the Confederates.

The fresh mountain air, the scent of pine, the rushing of the river next to the trail—it’d all made the long, bumpy ride worthwhile. And it would be even more worthwhile if he could dig up additional information.

He was finding that the fellows who worked construction with him were talented gossipers and an invaluable source of information on most people in South Park. He’d even gone out on a couple of evenings after work to chase down leads. They hadn’t amounted to anything, but he was quickly crossing names off his suspect list.

It always took time to narrow down and identify criminals. Rodney James would take even more effort than usual, based on how sneaky he was. He wasn’t the typical gun-slinging, table-turning, glass-shattering kind of man. Instead, from all the reports, he worked much more subtly and was a brilliant con artist.

Most notoriously he was wanted for his role in the slaughter of a regiment of black soldiers who were shot in cold blood rather than taken as prisoners of war.

One of the paragraphs described how Rodney infiltrated a Union regiment and pretended to be a surgeon. He killed at least a dozen injured soldiers before leaving with all the rations and ammunition.

Another incident told of his posing as a friend of a wounded Union soldier and taking news home to the man’s family. Apparently, the family had welcomed him into their home only to have him murder them in their sleep before leaving with everything of value.