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together as husband and wife for a good month before they left. Leaving like that wasn’t any spur-of-the-moment thing, sir—they’d planned the whole thing.”
    “No,” he said hoarsely.
    She nodded. “After Cullen died in January, Lydia put everything up for sale with absolutely no regard to the fact that it was Sally’s, not hers. When she couldn’t find anyone with enough hard money to buy the Landing itself, she sold things piecemeal, according to the banker. She made a tidy sum for herself—close to twenty thousand dollars in these hard times—and that wasn’t the whole of it. The conniving little thief found where Cullen had buried his strongbox, and she brought four thousand dollars in gold to the bank two days after his death. When Mr. Davidson said she had to put the money in her mother’s name, she caused quite a scene, insisting Sally was too incompetent to be trusted with it.”
    “My God.”
    “He refused to let her take it back, or it’d be gone, too. As it is, Sally sits here starving with me, because she can’t touch that four thousand dollars until it goes through probate, and as far as I know, there hasn’t even been an executor appointed. She’s not going to live long enough to see a penny of it, and then it will go to Lydia anyway.”
    “Liddy wouldn’t—she couldn’t leave her mother destitute.”
    “Oh, you don’t have to believe me, sir—you can ask the banker or Cullen’s lawyer or anyone else, for that matter. With no regard for decency or the law, she cleaned out everything that should have gone to Sally. Then she and Mr. Dormelly packed up what they wanted and left town. I worry about that little boy, sir—anybody as indifferent as Lydia was to the woman who bore her cannot be much of a mother herself.”
    He was too numb to respond. It couldn’t be, he told himself. Liddy didn’t even really like Ross. “Handsome enough, but exceedingly shallow,” she’d pronounced him once.
    “When they were driving out of town, she had her head on his shoulder, and he had his arm around her, according to those who saw her. The way they were acting, Mrs. Henderson said she thought the man was Lydia’s husband. Now if that isn’t a jezebel, I don’t know what is.”
    He had to get out of there before he exploded. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t even breathe. Pushing the coffee cup out of the way, he stumbled to his feet and bolted for the front door. In the front yard, he leaned against a huge oak tree and closed his eyes, waiting for the rage to pass. The woman had to be lying about Liddy. But that didn’t make any sense either.
    “Don’t you want to see Sally?” the old woman asked from the porch.
    Straightening up, he managed to answer, “Later—not today.”
    Once out of Macon, Spence rode hell-for-leather to nowhere in particular, with no regard for anything until his exhausted horse slowed to a walk, then finally stopped, too winded to go any farther. Dropping from the saddle, Spence lay facedown in the steamy grass, cursing Liddy, Ross, and the whole damned world.
    The witch had left him. While he’d been away in the hell called war, she’d betrayed him with a man he’d counted a friend, and then she’d left before he could even get home, stealing his son. Jezebel wasn’t a strong enough word for what she was.
    He didn’t care who had seduced whom. They’d both betrayed him. And they’d pay for it, he promised himself. No matter how long it took, no matter how hard they tried to hide, he’d track them down, and he’d kill them. And by God, they were going to look down the barrel of his gun and beg his forgiveness before he sent them both to hell.

Near Fort Kearny, Nebraska Territory: July 31, 1865

Near Fort Kearny, Nebraska Territory: July 31, 1865
    F lies buzzed, playing cat and mouse with the rolled newspaper in Laura Taylor’s hand. Drawn by food, they swarmed over the camp, and a closed tent flap was no match for the winged beasts, she realized