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Page 284
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Night had fallen. Thorn stood at the bar in the common room, nursing a large tankard of ale. He had eaten no supper. He had wanted none. He hoped for the oblivion of drinking overmuch brew, but oblivion was not to be.
The marauder whose gut his knife had pierced was dead. He had not wished the scoundrel buried near the inn, so he had insisted that the soldiers, with René's supervision, drag his large carcass for burial toward the river. That was where he had first seen the wretch who had tried to harm Mariah, who had, perhaps, killed her now.
For Thorn had finally recognized these well-dressed villains. They were the men who had been terrorizing Mariah when she had first appeared in the woods, begging his help.
He'd warned her then not to rely on him.
He took another long draught of ale, wanting to remember no more.
"I've spoken with our captive," said a voice beside him. René planted his large behind upon a chair near Thorn. The second rogue, the one René and Holly had subdued, was bound within the smokehouse. He was the younger one, the one called John Brant. The soldiers would take him when they returned the next day to Fort Pitt.
"Did he explain how they had happened to have Ambrose's horse and goods?" Thorn was only half interested despite considering Ambrose his friend.
He looked at his hand where it lay on the bar beside his tankard, at the veins on the back of it and his own blunt fingers.
That hand had killed a man that day, the one named Samuel. It had hurled a knife with perfect aim.
But it had not been able to save Mariah from being shot.
"He claims Ambrose is alive, though perhaps he has a severe headache," said René. "They came upon him down-fiver and decided that owning all the goods of the three of them was better than trading some of theirs for some of his. Les bâtards!"
Thorn nodded. "If they were downriver, we must check at Harrigan's to see if they know of Ambrose's fate." He

 
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