by Lynda J. Cox
By the time she crossed the street, her feet were encased in mud. She was certain each boot weighed at least ten pounds. There had been talk before the war of paving the main streets with brick, but the war had ended that discussion. Fresh anger welled in her. That damned war...
She paused outside the bank to scrape as much of the mud off the bottom and sides of her boots as she could along the edge of the boardwalk. No sense in aggravating Karl. The man was as persnickety about his bank building as any house-proud woman she’d ever met.
The interior of the bank always daunted her—composed of dark woods and brass. She wondered if it had been purposefully built in that manner, to intimidate anyone looking to the bank for a loan. The conference room was even more overwhelming, dominated with the large, nearly black table, seemingly carved of a single piece of wood. The few times she had been in that room and had a chance to study the table, she’d never seen a single place where the wood had been seamed. Franklin Brokken had hired a master woodworker to construct the bank and the home at the Brokken Arrow. Her failure to find the joining in the table only reinforced that title of master.
Karl looked up from the ledgers behind the teller’s counter. “Sheriff?”
“I’m meeting Curt here in about fifteen minutes. I’d like to use the conference room.” A chill that had nothing to do with the dampness settled deep in her and the thought whispered through her that if this didn’t work...She silenced that whisper with a clenching of her jaw. It would work.
“Certainly. I’ll go start the fire to warm the room.” He made his way out from behind the counter. “Would you and Curt like some coffee?”
Victoria nodded and rubbed her hands together, startled at how icy her fingers felt. “Yes. Thank you. And, when Curt gets here, would you please join us?”
Karl dipped his head in acquiescence. He turned to Klint Caper, the head teller. “Can you handle everything while I’m in this sudden meeting with my brother and the sheriff?”
Caper sent a tense, tight-lipped smile across the bank’s foyer. “Not a problem, Mr. Brokken.”
Karl gestured for Victoria to proceed him into the meeting room. Opulent wasn’t a word Victoria often used, and even though it didn’t fully encompass the meeting room, she supposed it came close. Not a sound encroached in this space. The deep Oriental rugs on the floor muffled the sound of her boot heels. The thick, heavily leaded glass windows prevented all but the loudest exterior noises from intruding. Dark wood paneling, polished and gleaming, reached from floor to ceiling, broken only on one wall with more leaded glass, this time for a set of built-in cabinets that housed the bank’s silver coffee set. The brass and crystal chandelier positioned in the exact center of the room and exactly over the middle of the large table did little to bring lightness into the oppressive room. Even the lemon oil scenting the air didn’t relieve the heaviness.
Karl lit the logs on the hearth, and when the flames licked eagerly at the dried wood, pulled the screen closed. He rounded the table to the built-in cabinets and withdrew the coffee service. “I’ll return in a few minutes with the coffee. You take yours with cream and sugar? Would you care for a few scones with marmalade?”
“Black, thank you.” The mention of the orange marmalade broke a little of the anxiety tightening her throat and added an unforced smile to her lips. “I’ll pass on the scones, unless the marmalade is of that special batch you and your brothers put together.”
“Sadly, all of that marmalade is gone.” Amusement sparkled in Karl’s eyes behind his gold-rimmed eye-glasses. “Have a seat, Sheriff,” the middle of the Brokken brothers said and he left the room.
Victoria stood near a wall, afraid to even touch one of the intricately carved chair backs for fear of leaving her fingerprints on the gleaming, polished surface.
When Karl returned, Curt flanked his brother. Curt shut the door and the only sound shattering the strained, awkward silence was that of the silver service making contact with the table.
“What’s this all about, Victoria?” Curt asked.
She had to put all her cards on the table. It was the only way it would work. “It wasn’t Jonathan English who came back to Brokken.”
The brothers exchanged a glance that wasn’t shocked or surprised. “We know,” Curt flatly stated.
“You know? How?”
Curt pulled a chair out from the table, dropped into it, and poured himself a cup of coffee. “Men his age don’t grow two inches in height.”
“And very few forget they had an account here with a couple hundred dollars in it,” Karl added.
Victoria blinked with the revelations from the Brokkens. She knew nothing of the account at the bank. “Why didn’t you say something?”
“We figured it was none of our business. If you were satisfied he was Jonathan, it wasn’t our place to point out he isn’t.” Karl poured two cups, placing one on the table near Victoria. “Though, I admit, determining how you couldn’t realize he’s not your missing husband has led to some interesting speculation.”
Victoria dropped her palms onto the tabletop, struggling to comprehend how it seemed everyone knew the secret she and Jon fought to keep, while at the same, hoped to hide how red her face must be. “Does everyone in town know this?”
“Probably,” Curt admitted. “I’ve heard enough gossip in the store to make that assumption. So, who is he really?”
A polite rapping on the door forestalled Victoria’s answer. The heavy door eased open enough to allow Caper to poke his head into the room. “Mr. English is here. He said the sheriff asked him to join you here.”
Chapter Sixteen
If he could judge by the less than contrived blank expressions, the shared glance the Brokken brothers passed between them, and the tension marring Victoria’s features, he’d timed his arrival just right.
“The man of the hour,” Karl said as he removed his eye-glasses and bent his head, studiously polishing the lenses with what Jon took to be a silk handkerchief. He caught Victoria’s gaze. A warning nudge of her head halted his response to the banker’s sarcasm.
Curt broke the strained silence. “Who are you, really?”
Jon admired Curt’s directness even as he walked closer to the fire crackling and popping on the hearth, intentionally cutting off his only route of escape from the room. “Jon Andrews.”
The brothers reacted in the same manner: heads snapped up, shoulders pulled back, and anger shimmered across the room. Curt levered out of the chair, his expression freezing in a snarl. “Of the Andrews gang?”
Jon canted a quick look to Victoria and then returned his gaze to the oldest brother. “What gang?”
“A group of outlaws who showed up here about six months ago. They thought...” Curt trailed off for a long pause. “Doesn’t matter what they thought. They shot the town up, set fire to a lot of the buildings, and killed two people. Edna Snider, our schoolteacher, was killed in the crossfire while protecting the few kids left here. Pretty odd coincidence your last name and that group’s name is the same.”
“I had nothing to do with that, Curt.” Jon levelly met the store-owner’s angry gaze.
The oldest Brokken’s expression slid into a sneer even as he looked away and then sank into the chair again.
“Jon was held in the prison in Watonga when the Andrews gang was here,” Victoria said, her voice soft with what he recognized as a mingling of pain and failure.
Karl leaned back in his chair, settling his eye-glasses on, and methodically wrapping the ear-pieces around his ears. “Watonga? Curt, unless he was rapping out instructions in Morse code to that gang of outlaws while he was breaking rocks, he couldn’t have been involved.”
Jon held his breath through the tension-filled moments while Curt weighed his younger brother’s words. Victoria’s stiff posture held on the edge of his vision. Finally, Curt heaved out a deep breath. “All right, Victoria, you asked all of us here for a reason. What is it?”
Victoria nodded to Jon. He sw
allowed the sudden large lump in his throat. “One of you has to kill me.”
Curt and Karl slowly tilted their heads to Victoria, Karl shooting an eyebrow up over the rim of his eye-glasses.
“Now, or would you like us to give you a few minutes to say good-bye to your wife?” Curt asked.
“Curt, this is not a joke.” Victoria leaned forward, her palms once more pressing into the table. “If we can’t convince Alva Colbert Jon is dead when he arrives here in less than two days, Jon will die.”
Another subtle interplay of little more than a sidelong glance was shared by the brothers. Jon pulled out a chair farthest from the two and closest to the fire, then slowly sank into it. Karl looked down the table, his sudden intense gaze lingering on a point just behind Jon. He fought the urge to look over his shoulder to see whatever held the banker’s hard stare.
“Sit down, Victoria,” Karl said in a low voice, “and start at the beginning so Curt and I know exactly what it is you want to get us involved with.”
Victoria nodded and made her way to the end of the table. The misgiving and tension knotting Jon’s stomach vanished when she sat next to him and took his hand into hers. Maybe, this would work. Maybe, there was a chance he could come out of this alive. She spoke in rapid, short sentences, relating everything Jon recalled telling her, including how Jonathan English had stolen Jon’s identity. The brothers shared yet another sidelong glance and this time, Victoria caught it.
“What is it?” She leaned closer to the other end of the table. “What was that look for?”
“Nothing,” Karl said with a dismissive shake of his head. “How did this Colbert character learn Jonath...Jon...whatever his name is wound up in Brokken?”
Victoria’s fingers tightened on his. The troublesome lump returned, causing his breath to catch. Jon cleared his throat. “I sleepwalk. According to Mr. Levinson, I woke him the other night, insisting he send a telegram to Colbert. I don’t remember it, but I was sleepwalking that night.”
“You were sleepwalking, in the rain, and you woke Levinson to send a telegram?” Curt drummed his fingers on the polished surface of the table. “Something isn’t right in that story.”
“I don’t have a death wish.” Jon paused to try to ease the painful tension in his gut. “In a wide-awake state, I wouldn’t send Colbert anything.”
Karl’s head lifted, and the place over Jon’s shoulder seemed to hold his attention again. This time, Jon twisted around, attempting to see what the banker stared at. A single painting of a mountain stream rushing past dark and jagged boulders, the mountains black and rugged, with a storming sky filled the wall. How he had missed the imposing and foreboding image startled him.
“Maybe,” Karl mused, his gaze never leaving the disturbing painting, “you didn’t send that telegram.”
Something in Karl’s pensive words struck a chord with the older Brokken. Curt snorted. “Karl, Fritz over-reacted. He’s always done that. There’s not a chance—”
“Fritz is adamant he saw—”
“What he saw was from a good three hundred feet away, through the trees, and from the back.” Curt threw his hands up, in a gesture that clearly screamed his exasperation. “Fritz was more concerned with seeing you and me in that mess. We never saw him, and we were stuck riding with them for almost a week.”
“We were blindfolded, with sacks over our heads the whole time,” Karl countered, a similar frustrated edge to his words.
“What are you two talking about?” Victoria’s voice rang in the room, the edge to her words not blunted by the muffling effect of the heavy fixtures.
If Victoria was confused, Jon was hopelessly lost. Karl pulled his sight from the painting over Jon’s shoulder, meeting Jon’s gaze for a long moment. The banker gestured to Curt. “While Curt doesn’t believe Fritz, I’m inclined to believe him now. When the Andrews’s gang was here, Fritz swore he saw Jonathan in that group—leading it, in fact.”
“The man Fritz saw wore a bandanna over half his face, and Fritz admitted he only caught a glimpse of him. On the other hand, Karl and I were dragged along with the gang for five days, and we never once saw Jonathan or heard him.” A marked edge clipped every word Curt said. “Andrews here sending a telegram in his sleep is more plausible than Jonathan being the head of an outlaw gang.”
While Curt wasn’t giving any credence to Fritz’s claims, Victoria was. Her fingers tightened painfully on Jon’s hand and the stillness to her form reminded him of a rabbit frozen in fear. Anger filled him, boiling in its intensity. “That gang was here six months ago and neither one of you has bothered to say a word to Victoria about it in all this time?”
“To be fair,” Karl said, his head dipping toward the table, “until now, I didn’t put much stock in what Fritz said he saw.”
“I’m still not putting any stock in it.” Curt shoved away from the table and marched in a determined manner to the door. “When you figure out how to make your false husband dead, let me know.”
“It was Jonathan.” Victoria’s thin pronouncement stopped the store-owner cold.
Curt looked over his shoulder. “Vic, he’s dead. That’s what Deb and I both told Fritz. He’s dead because if he wasn’t, you know he’d be back here.”
As if she realized just how fiercely she gripped his hand, Victoria eased her hold. Her chattering teeth were audible before Jon saw her jaw clench. More than anything, he wanted to wrap her in his arms and promise to keep her safe, but he couldn’t make that promise.
“If it wasn’t Jonathan Fritz saw, you explain to me how that gang knew the names of the people in this town.” An undercurrent of metal forged as strong as railroad track entered her voice, removing any weakness. “Explain to me how that gang knew where to position themselves to cut off any outside assistance, if Jonathan is dead and not leading that gang.”
If her husband was still alive, still in the area, and leading a gang of outlaws, it changed everything. And changed nothing. Jon slowly shook his head. “Even if it was your husband—” The word stuck in his throat and felt as bitter on his tongue as poison. “—it doesn’t help us at the moment.”
“We can prove it wasn’t you; it was Jonathan.” Victoria’s fingers tightened on his hand again. “Jon, we can prove—”
“I’m not wanted by Colbert for anything Jonathan did while he hid behind my name.”
Curt’s slow steps back to the table brought a long moment of silence into the room, broken only by the occasional pop of the flames on the hearth and the muffled, distant wail of the evening train. He lowered himself into the chair recently vacated. “As the majority in this room are accepting the highly improbable as plausible, we’re back to killing you.”
Jon recoiled with the icy glare Curt shot at him. The store-owner’s anger was both puzzling and disconcerting. With a start, he realized where it came from. With Jonathan dead, Curt probably believed he could court Victoria, though why the man hadn’t tried in the intervening years was another question. Had Victoria been the one who doused those flames?
“Curt, we owe Victoria.” Karl leaned an elbow onto the table, closer to his older brother.
“Enough to risk going to jail? We’d be helping an escaped convict.”
Karl bolted from his chair, grabbing Curt’s upper arm in the same motion. “We were willing to go to jail for father. The sheriff, the others in town, we owe it to them. This is saving a man’s life.”
Curt’s jaw clenched, and looked away from his brother, not answering Karl. Jon realized he never would. Too much stood in the way of Curt Brokken ever acceding to Karl: Curt’s own pride, perhaps; his obvious and real fear of imprisonment; and maybe his hopes of winning Victoria. Two of the three, Jon probably could persuade him differently. The last...Jon stood, immediately drawing the attention of the two brothers. “No one is asking either of you to do anything you feel you can’t do. Karl, as far as anyone is concerned, I’m still Jonathan English, right?”
Karl straightened, and without tur
ning to him, still craned his head in Jon’s direction. “Yes.”
“I’d like to close that account you told me about the other day. I need to purchase a horse and provisions.”
Victoria’s breath caught on a ragged hitch. He sensed, more than saw, her leap out of the chair. Both her hands closed around his lower arm. “Jon, no. You’ll spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder.”
As gently as he could, he extracted his arm. “At least I’ll have a life.” He turned to her, caught her face between his hands, and tilted her head up to him. A knife felt as if it was lodged in his chest with the sight of the tears filling her eyes. “Not the life that I let myself believe I could have the last week or so, but it’s a life.”
“Curt.” Karl’s voice crackled with anger. “This isn’t right.”
From the corner of his eye, Jon watched Curt walk from the room, leaving only Victoria, Karl, and himself. Karl heaved out a deep breath. “I’ll go close the account. When you go to the livery to buy a horse, tell Mrs. Walsh you want Froggy. And, tell her to send me the bill.”
Without taking his sight off Victoria, Jon managed a single nod. Neither moved, barely breathed, until the door closed with a soft click.
“Don’t, Jon. Please.”
The break in her voice almost undid his resolve to run. He pressed a lingering kiss to her forehead, her ragged breath falling into a soft cry.
“I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to leave you.” He pulled her tightly against him, asking for strength. “Unless you can immediately come up with another option, I’ll have about a twenty-four hour head start.”
Garbled shouting penetrated through the heavy oak door. Jon backed slightly away from Victoria but didn’t open his embrace. He caught her wrist as she dropped her hand onto the grip of her ever-present revolver and shook his head.