whispered, "This is all wrong. If I had come forward sooner, Grace and
Jessica wouldn't be living in fear."
"Why didn't you tell the truth in the beginning? Was it fear? " "Yes,
" she said.
"Ma'am, you can get into serious trouble lying to an officer of the
law, " Deputy Cobb called out. His friend Spencer nodded his
agreement.
"You could go to jail for that offense, " Spencer added.
"What does it matter? " Rebecca asked. "I'm already in trouble. I'm
going to be hunted by those criminals, and it will be a miracle if I
survive. I don't understand why they haven't tried yet. What are they
waiting for? Why haven't they tried to silence me? " "They've been
busy, that's why." Daniel answered her question from the doorway.
He came down the stairs and handed Cooper a telegram. "Another bank's
been robbed, " he said. "Sixty miles southeast of here." Cooper
swore. "Was it clean? " Daniel looked grim. "No."
"What did you mean when you asked Daniel if it was clean? " Rebecca
asked.
Daniel turned to answer her. "He was asking me if there were any
carualties." Rebecca paled. "How many were killed? " "Three men, "
Daniel answered. "All of them were employees of the bank."
"Those poor men, " she whispered.
Daniel had motioned to Cooper to follow him to the corner of the
garden. In a low voice he said, "There was something different about
this one."
"What? " Cooper asked.
"Every desk inside the bank was overturned, and a copy of the Rockford
Gazette was nailed to the wall. There was blood all over it. "
"They're telling us they know we have a witness. 2^ Daniel nodded.
"Let's get the hell out of here." raveling with a toddler wasn't
difficult, it was a nightmare. The baby didn't know how to be quiet.
Most of what he said didn't make any sense, but he still expected and
demanded an answer anyway, and Cole was pretty certain he chattered
nonstop just to hear the sound of his voice echoing through the
forest.
His favorite word was still no. He whispered it, shouted it, whined
it, and sang it, and by the time they stopped for the night, Cole was
sure he'd said the word at least two hundred times.
It was almost sunset when they finally made camp in a secluded area by
a small horseshoe-shaped lake. Jagged rock ledges, some as high as
fifty feet, jutted out over the water in spots and offered protection
from the rain and wind. More important, no one could sneak up on them
during the night. There was only one way into camp, and that was on
the path that bordered one side of the lake.
While Cole saw to the horses, Jessica fed Caleb his dinner. The baby
was far more interested in exploring his surroundings than eating, and
it took considerable coaxing by his mother to get him to cooperate.
Cole wasn't worried about all the noise Caleb was making, because he
knew they weren't being followed. He'd backtracked twice just to make