Redemption's Edge Read online

Chapter One

  Boston, July 1865

  “I don’t understand why you can’t at least meet the young man. He’s from an excellent family.”

  “I’m sure he is, Mother.”

  Rachel Davenport continued to fold and stack clothes into a large trunk. Two others were already filled and waiting in the corner of her bedroom.

  “Perhaps you won’t feel compelled to follow your uncle west if you meet the right man.” Harriet Davenport clenched a handkerchief while watching her daughter clean out the wardrobe she’d been given as a young woman, before she’d grown up and volunteered to help all those injured men during the war.

  Rachel closed the trunk and hung her head, biting her lower lip as she tried to come up with the best way to express herself. No matter how she phrased it, she knew her mother would never understand her need to leave Boston, the life for which she’d been bred, and the comforts her family’s wealth offered. Rachel glanced around the room, remembering a wonderful childhood and loving family, and wondered why she couldn’t do as her mother asked—marry, have children, and settle into a comfortable existence as a well-kept wife.

  “I know my decision is a disappointment to you and Father.” She stood and walked to the window overlooking the rose garden her mother so carefully tended. “This is no longer the life I want. I have skills most women don’t and we both know I’ll never be hired in Boston, not with our name and status. Besides, this isn’t where I’m needed.” She turned to face her mother. “Uncle Charles has offered me a position in his clinic, a place where my skills will prove useful.”

  “My God, Rachel, it’s in the Montana Territory. Think about what it will be like—the hardships and isolation.”

  “It will be no worse than what I’ve already seen.”

  “Damn that war,” her mother muttered. “You should never have been involved, working with the injured soldiers, witnessing things…” Her already thin voice trailed off as if she, too, could visualize the carnage her daughter had seen.

  Rachel stood and walked toward her mother, grasping her hands, searching the eyes of a woman she loved more than she could express. “Please try to understand. This is something I have to do. Uncle Charles needs someone and I’m the best person to go.” She dropped her mother’s hands and stepped back. “Besides, I may get out there, stay a few months, and find I do miss my life here in Boston.”

  “Or get yourself kidnapped by those savages your uncle treats. Then we’ll never see you again.”

  “Mother, you know that’s not at all true. Where have you heard such things?”

  “I’ve read about them.” Her indignant response accompanied the defensive tilt of her head.

  “In what? Those dime novels your sister gives you?” A smile drifted across Rachel’s face at the thought of her mother curled up in the drawing room, reading about outlaws, cowboys, and Indians.

  “Well, they’re written by people who’ve been there, so they should know.” The annoyed reply almost made Rachel laugh.

  “That could be, although Uncle Charles has yet to mention anything more disturbing than ranch hands getting drunk and shooting up the town on a Saturday night.” She grabbed her shawl and took her mother’s arm. “I leave in two days. Let’s try to have a good time until then. Please. I don’t want to waste another minute arguing about a decision that’s already been made.”

  Savannah, Georgia, July 1865

  Dax stood at the entrance to what used to be his home. It had once been a large, imposing, two-story house on several acres at the edge of Savannah, over a mile from the waterfront where the family kept their shipping fleet. A fleet Sherman’s troops decimated during their siege a few months before.

  Atlanta fell, and Savannah followed four months later. The massive devastation of both cities crushed both military and civilian morale. When Dax looked away from his home toward the center of the city, the scenery changed little—burned buildings, blocks leveled by Union artillery, starved citizens scavenging for food, and heartbreaking despair. The two great battles during the last months of 1864 signaled the eventual end to the Confederacy’s fight.

  He walked around the rubble to the back, stepping over the charred remains of furniture that had been in his family for several generations—a family of fur traders who’d become merchants and prosperous seamen, transporting goods between U.S. cities and European ports. Little remained. Everything of value had been taken, and all else burned.

  Dax opened the gate into the family cemetery and knelt beside his mother’s grave. She’d died within months of Dax enlisting in the Confederacy at the start of the war. His younger brother, Luke, enlisted a year later, leaving their youngest brother, André, to help their father run the business and the home. André had died of pneumonia the previous summer, followed by their father within months. Only Dax and Luke remained. Dax sat back on his heels, idly picking out grass around the cross-shaped marker and trying to accept the loss of so many.

  “I promise, Mother. I’ll find Luke. If he’s alive, I’ll find him,” Dax whispered.

  “You won’t need to go far.”

  Dax twisted at the sound of the familiar voice behind him and jumped to his feet.

  “Luke.” His voice sounded husky with emotion as he enveloped his brother in a bear hug, then stepped back to let his eyes wander over the man he hadn’t seen in almost three years. The youthful features replaced by those burdened by the sight of too much death. Eyes that once sparkled with mischief were now flat and hard.

  “In the flesh.”

  “And that?” Dax nodded toward the cane Luke held in his left hand.

  “A shot to the leg. It’s almost healed. I returned home in March to recuperate and found this.” His arm swept over the devastation. “The neighbors, those who are left, told me of father and André. I hadn’t heard.”

  Dax clasped Luke on the shoulder, pain for all they’d lost consuming him. He had little stomach for rebuilding a new life at the source of his greatest loss. As the oldest surviving son, he knew his responsibilities now included Luke, no matter that this brother was a seasoned twenty-five-year-old ex-major.

  Dax strode to one of the stacks of rubble, picked up a broken piece of china, then threw it back onto the pile. “Where are you staying?”

  “With the Yanceys.”

  Dax cast a knowing look at Luke. “So you’ll finally succumb to Violet’s charms and marry her?” Perhaps it would be for the best if Luke settled down and began a family.

  “Violet? No, Dax. I have no plans to marry. And even if I did, she’s not the one I’d choose.”

  They walked to the front, Luke climbing into the carriage he borrowed from the elder Yancey, while Dax mounted Hannibal, the imposing stallion who’d seen him through the war and saved his life on numerous occasions.

  “You will stay with me. The Yanceys will be glad to have you, and it will give us a chance to talk of the future.” Luke tapped the horses.

  Dax rode alongside, unsure how to explain to Luke he had no plans to stay and rebuild what they’d lost. He’d deed his portion of the land to his brother, then set out to find a new life elsewhere, where the skills he’d acquired during the war would be useful. Luke reveled in the social life of a large city, while Dax had preferred to spend his time at the docks, captaining the family ships and expanding their holdings.

  The war had changed more than the landscape. Sometime over the long years of battle, Dax had lost his consuming drive to achieve, build the most prosperous shipping fleet in Savannah and help lead Georgia to the glory he felt it deserved—the showplace of the South.

  For now, he’d enjoy Luke’s company and the hospitality the Yancey’s offered. He wouldn’t wait long—a week, maybe two—then he’d tell Luke of his decision to leave Savannah forever.

  “You’re sure of this, Rachel? It’s not too late to change your mind and stay here in Boston. I’m certain Charles will understand.” Rachel’s father, James Davenport, gripped his daughter’s last piece of
luggage, a satchel she’d keep by her side during the long trip. It held money, two changes of clothes, sundries, a couple of books, and her diary. His voice shook, indicating the depth of his emotions at losing his daughter a second time—once to the war, and now to the western frontier.

  Rachel turned to him with the warm smile he’d become used to seeing over the last two months. Today, however, it didn’t exhibit its usual glow. Sadness rimmed her eyes, even as determination defined her features.

  “This is something I must do, Father. I know my decision is hard for you and Mother, and there’s no adequate reason I can offer. It’s just something I must do. Please understand and wish me well.”

  The pleading look she trained on him broke her father’s last thread of defense.

  “Oh, Rachel. What are your mother and I to do without you?” He pulled her to him and into the type of hug he’d offered as a child. It didn’t last more than a few seconds before he turned her loose and stepped back. “You will write to us every week, even while traveling. Don’t miss a week, or your mother will demand I go after you.”

  “Would that be so bad, Father? To come visit me in Montana?” Rachel hoped he hadn’t heard the slight quiver in her voice. As strong and determined as Rachel appeared, she still anxious about making the journey alone. But something drew her. An unfamiliar calling that almost demanded she leave the comforts of Boston for the unknowns of the West.

  “No, it’s not a bad idea. All I need is time to persuade your mother there is life beyond the Mississippi.” He waved to their driver, who jumped down from the carriage and began loading the three trunks packed with almost everything Rachel owned.

  “Are we ready, James?” Rachel’s mother joined them on the front step.

  “It appears so, dear.” He checked his pocket watch.

  James helped Harriet and Rachel into their carriage, then signaled to the driver. He sat across from the two most important women in his life, sobered at the thought this might be the last time the three of them enjoyed a ride through the city, past the park where they’d taken family picnics, and the theatre, which had been a focal point of their life before the war. A tightness formed in his chest as they approached the train station, while pride in his daughter held him together. In his heart, he knew she’d do well, and prayed she’d come back to them soon.

  “I see.” Luke sat in the old rocker on the porch of the Yancey home, rocking back and forth, holding a cheroot and listening as Dax attempted to justify his decision to leave. “So you’ll leave it all, turn your back on what our family built, and find a new life.” His voice held a calm understanding, quite unlike the temper he’d often displayed in his youth. “You’ll leave me behind?”

  Dax knew his decision would appear harsh, even selfish, given he’d fought five long years to preserve their way of life. They’d owned eight slaves, descendants of a family who’d been with their great-grandfather when he’d built the home that now lay in ruin. All had lived through the war, yet they now made their home in an abandoned warehouse owned by the Pelletier family. No one understood how it had been spared when the buildings around it had been reduced to rubble.

  “There’s money. More than enough to rebuild both the house and business. Although free, our people have stayed. You know Polly and George will keep everyone together and help you rebuild. I doubt much will change, except they will be free to leave if they choose.”

  “And the shipping business?”

  “It can be rebuilt, if it’s what you want.”

  Luke blew out smoke and tapped ash from the end of his thin cigar. “I was never the captain you were, and don’t know anything about rebuilding a shipping empire.” He looked away, toward the setting sun. “I had other interests at that time.”

  They both knew to what Luke referred. Although he had a better head for business than Dax, he’d been considered the golden boy, the one who could charm anyone. Their father had once called him an aspiring rake. Had the war not interrupted him, Dax felt certain his brother would have risen to fame within the female circles of Savannah.

  “What are your interests now?” Dax stood and placed his hands on the porch rail, looking out into the western sky as the sun finished its descent.

  “Guess I’ll need to think on it a bit. If your decision is firm—”

  “It is,” Dax cut in.

  “Then it changes everything.” He threw the spent cheroot toward the yard. “When do you leave?”

  “Four days from now, at dawn.”

  Luke used his cane to stand, then joined his brother at the railing. “That gives me four days to figure out what I’ll do once you leave. Guess I’d better visit George and Polly tomorrow.”

  “I’ll deed my interest in everything to you. It will all be yours.”

  “No. I won’t take what is rightfully yours, what you worked years to build and then defended during the war.” His fierce words surprised Dax.

  “I don’t want it, Luke.”

  “What you want means little to me right now. No matter what I decide to do, I will not take your half. Besides, you may change your mind and come back.”

  Dax shook his head, a feeling deep in his gut telling him he’d never set foot in Savannah again. “All right, if that’s what you want.”

  Luke started to turn, then glanced back at his brother. “Come on. Miss Rue still has her place open. I’ll buy the drinks, you decide on the women.”

  “Hello, ma’am. Mind if I join you?”

  The soft southern drawl had Rachel looking up to see an incredibly good-looking man staring down at her, a hat in his hand. “Please.” She nodded to the seat beside her and watched as he tried to fit his long legs into the small space. She guessed him to be well over six feet tall. “Not quite built for large men, is it?”

  “No, ma’am. Most trains aren’t. I’m Cash Coulter.”

  “Rachel Davenport, Mr. Coulter. It’s nice to meet you.”

  “A city girl?”

  “Yes. From Boston. And you, Mr. Coulter? Where are you from?”

  “The South, ma’am.” Cash set his well-worn hat on his head and tipped it down, hiding his face and shutting Rachel out.

  It had been three months since the war ended and animosity between those from the Northern and Southern states remained high. Rachel had worked in Union field hospitals, moving from one battlefield to the next as the war progressed. Within a few short weeks with work days stretching to thirty hours at times, the sight of injured men had become normal. During the two years Rachel had worked in the field, she’d treated soldiers from both sides of the line—gray or blue, it didn’t matter. If they were injured, the medical staff treated them.

  She watched Cash’s features as he settled into a light snore. He had what her mother would call patrician features—a straight nose, blond hair, piercing clear blue eyes, and a regal bearing. Something about his attitude, although cultured and polite, warned her away from the man.

  The whistle blew as the train approached the final stop in Missouri, pulling toward the station. Cash’s head snapped up, his hand moving with lightning speed to the holstered gun as his eyes shifted to the woman beside him. He scrubbed a hand over his face and sat up.

  “I believe this is our stop, Mr. Coulter.” Rachel’s tired voice underscored how exhausting her trip had been, and she still had many miles to go.

  Cash stood, signaling for her to step in front of him into the aisle. He helped her to the railroad platform before tipping his hat.

  “Guess I’ll be on my way, Miss Davenport. It was a pleasure to meet you.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Coulter. I wish you a safe journey.”

  Cash glanced back over his shoulder at her words, nodded, then continued on.

  She watched him walk toward the back of the train and wait while a worker drew open the sliding door and set up a ramp. He strode into the open car and, a minute later, led out a beautiful buckskin horse with a dark mane and tail. He tied the horse to a nearby post and steppe
d into the car once more. This time, he emerged holding a saddle and tack.

  “Miss Davenport?”

  Rachel swiveled to see a boy several feet away, her trunks stacked next to him.

  “Yes, I’m Miss Davenport.” She glanced behind her once more to see Cash ride away, back straight, head held high, and hoped life would be good to the battle hardened southerner.

  “Where do you want these?”

  She gave the boy directions to the hotel where she’d be staying until the stagecoach left for Nebraska. From there, she’d travel to a settlement at the southern edge of the Montana Territory to meet her uncle in the territorial capital of Big Pine. His message indicated they’d obtain supplies, then begin the final part of her journey to Splendor, Montana, her new home. Tonight, she looked forward to a hot bath, a good meal, and sleeping in a regular bed.

  “What may I do for you, Miss?” The hotel clerk stood erect behind the counter, spectacles perched low on his nose, focused on the paper in front of him.

  “There should be a room for me. Miss Rachel Davenport.”

  He reached below the counter to check a ledger, found her name, then handed her a key.

  “Best place for supper is next door. Same for breakfast. Will you be traveling on?”

  “I’m taking the stagecoach to Nebraska.” She looked around at the quaint, clean hotel, and wondered how her father had found it.

  “The stage leaves at dawn day after tomorrow. I’ll have someone get your trunks to the station early that morning. Very early.” He squinted over the rims of his glasses as if to emphasize the point.

  “I’d like a bath.”

  “Make that two.”

  Rachel jumped at the sound of the deep, southern drawl behind her. She turned to see Cash Coulter, saddlebags slung over his shoulder.

  “So we meet again, Miss Davenport.” Cash took off his hat and nodded at the clerk, who had stopped his work to stare at the newcomer.

  “It appears so, Mr. Coulter. You’re staying here, I take it?”

  “Yes. A night, maybe two, then I’ll be off.”

  “Anything else, Miss Davenport?” the clerk asked.

  “No, just the bath. Oh, and I’d like you to store my trunks. I won’t need them before I leave.” She turned to leave as Cash stepped up to the counter. “I guess it’s goodbye again, Mr. Coulter. Enjoy your evening.”

  “Ma’am,” he nodded before turning away.

  The bath felt wonderful. She had to fight the temptation to fall into bed without a meal, but her need for a decent meal overpowered her need for sleep. Rachel replaced her dirty traveling clothes with clean ones and walked to the restaurant next door.

  “Be right with you.” A rotund woman set down plates heaped with steaming food in front of a young couple, then walked toward Rachel. “All right. Just you, dear?”

  “Yes.” She followed the woman toward a table, surprised at the number of people.

  “Miss Davenport?”

  Rachel’s gaze darted to Cash, who stood next to a table near the window. “Good evening, Mr. Coulter.”

  “Join me, please. It’d enjoy not eating alone.” He gestured to an empty seat.

  “Thank you. That’s quite nice of you.”

  Cash looked at the server. “Bring her what I’m having, including the pie and coffee.”

  Rachel set her reticule on the table while Cash pulled out her chair.

  “So, you’ve come out west from Boston?” His clear blue eyes focused on hers.

  “Yes. I’m meeting my uncle in Montana. He’s a doctor and needs help. I’m a nurse, so it seemed like the right decision.”

  “Montana. Harsh country. Bitter cold winters, high winds, Indians. A far cry from the life you left behind.” He sipped his coffee while they waited for her meal.

  “Yes and no. I was a nurse during the war.”

  She didn’t need to say more. Rachel could see the haunted look in his eyes, telling her he’d seen many of the same things she had—maybe worse.

  “And you? Where are you headed?”

  “A job in Denver.”

  “I hope to travel there some day. What kind of work are you in?”

  Cash watched her, wondering about her knowledge of the west and how much he should say. “I locate people.” He glanced up as the server set Rachel’s meal down.

  “Thank you. This looks wonderful.” She smiled at the woman, while inhaling the scent of cooked meat, then looked up at Cash. “This is perfect.” She didn’t wait a moment longer. Within minutes, half her steak and most of the potatoes were gone. Rachel picked up the coffee cup and took a sip. That’s when she noticed Cash had stopped eating, and sat, staring, with a look of grim amusement in his eyes. “What is it?”

  “I’ve never seen a woman eat with such intensity.”

  Rachel set down her cup. “During the war, I learned to take food when offered and eat as fast as possible. Same with sleep. There never seemed to be enough of either.” A vague smile crossed her face. “Guess I should learn to slow down.”

  “Nothing wrong with a strong appetite.” He picked up his fork and finished the last of his supper.

  “I saw you unload a beautiful horse from the train. Will you be riding him to Denver?”

  “That’s right. I need a horse I can depend on for my work.”

  “I’m sorry, but tell me again what kind of work you do.”

  This time Cash didn’t hesitate. “I hunt people, Miss Davenport. For money.”

  ~~~~~