Archer's Return by Leona Grace

Author:Leona Grace
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Leona Grace
Published: 2020-05-21T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

Archer woke to find the sun lower in the sky than he expected. A deep sleep and, if he’d dreamed, he had no memory and he was rested and alert. Duane and Lancey were stirring, roused no doubt by the smell of hot apples wafting through from the other side of the wall, and he found his boots and opened the door to the main room.

Martha was rolling pastry on the wooden table, her bare arms dusted with flour, smudges on her cheeks. “Feeling better? I didn’t want to wake you, thought you all needed some rest.”

It was like being a child again, his mother sending him off to bed early after a hard day’s work, his little brother asleep on one side of the shared bed. He was fifteen before he had a bed of his own, and then it was strange not to have William curled alongside him. “Is there any coffee?”

“Over on the stove.” She lifted a round of pastry and draped it over a plate covered with stewed apples. Deft hands cut away the excess and crimped the edge. A dusting of sugar and she put the plate aside and wiped the table clean.

“Can you spare some supplies, enough for a few days?” He hated to ask, seeing how they had little enough, but they might need to make a run for it sooner rather than later. “And I’ll need all the horses – including yours and the plough horses – saddled and ready to leave as soon as the others are awake.”

She stared at her husband. “Off you go. I’ll have a bag ready in a few minutes.”

George left without a word, the door clicking shut behind him, leaving Archer sitting at the table with a mug of coffee, strong and hot and black. The door opened, Duane and Lancey coming in, sheepish and yawning and he pushed his chair back, found two more mugs and poured coffee for each. “Duane? I want you and Lancey to take all the horses to where you waited earlier. It’s too dangerous to keep them here where anyone might see them. There’s enough cover above the tree line to keep them hidden until we’ve seen off Dalton’s men. Martha’s putting some supplies together in case we need them, but let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

“And then?”

“Depends on you. I’d rather you stayed there, out of harm’s way, but that’s not going to happen, is it?” He looked at the woman. “I can’t persuade you to do the same can I?”

She shook her head, her hands busy wrapping bread and the rest of the ham in muslin cloths. “I’ll leave when George leaves. Not before.”

There was no point in trying to argue and they were wasting precious time as it was. “Once the horses’re ready, get them up the hill as quick as you can but make sure no one’s watching you. If they are, then everything’s lost. If they suspect anyone’s here, then we’ve failed even before we begin.

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