by Lynda J. Cox
The door was flung open and bounced off the wall next to it.
“It’s a private meeting. You can’t go in...” Karl’s angry protest faded.
There would be no head start. Alva Colbert stood in the open doorway, two of his hand-picked guards behind him.
Chapter Seventeen
Before Victoria could even register who the three newcomers were, the two behind the portly, white-headed, heavily bearded man charged into the room, directly at her and Jon. Without even a conscious thought, Victoria stepped between Jon and the men, had her revolver cleared of leather and cocked before those men were halfway around either side of the table. “One more step from either one of you and I’ll splatter your brains all over this polished room.”
“Gentlemen, give the lady some space.” The unfamiliar voice belonged to the portly stranger.
Victoria didn’t look to the man still in the doorway. Her sight skipped from side to side. “That’s sheriff to you, mister. I don’t know who you are or who you think you are, but no one rushes me or my husband like that.”
To her relief, Jon didn’t dispute their marital status.
“I’m so sorry that introductions weren’t made.” The smile crossing his face curdled her blood. “I’m Alva Colbert, and I believe you sent me a telegram, Sheriff.”
Victoria snapped the revolver to her right, to take a steady aim on the man slowly advancing toward her. “Back up.”
When he retreated several steps, her gaze moved between Colbert’s two men. “About that telegram...we’re a very small town. Gossip travels fast. Andrews must have gotten wind of it and he’s gone.”
“Sheriff, please don’t insult my intelligence. The man you’re claiming as your husband is my prisoner.” Colbert’s smile broadened, and he finally lifted his sight to Jon. “Andrews, I have to hand it to you. Very smart, seducing the sheriff.”
Jon audibly swallowed.
“But the chase is over, and I will take you back to Watonga.” The false smile faded with the lethal promise in Colbert’s voice. “You can come quietly, and we can do this the easy way, or we do it the hard way. Either way, you will come with me.”
Both of Colbert’s men charged again. Victoria didn’t think, merely aimed at one and shot. Her bullet hit his arm and spun him around. In a blur, she brought the revolver into a firing position but her second target was on her, brandishing a small club of some sort.
Jon shoved her out of the way. Victoria stumbled backward, losing her aim at the second assailant. Jon’s shoulder took the full brunt of the man’s swing. The man she winged suddenly had a revolver in his hand, pointing it at her head.
“Andrews! On your knees, hands behind your head, or she dies. Sheriff, drop your gun, or I will kill him.” Colbert’s voice never rose above a conversational level yet somehow the words felt to be louder than a cannon blast.
Victoria cast a frightened glance at Colbert. A small amount of admiration coursed through her with the sight of the small derringer he held. Unfortunately, the little gun was just as deadly at this close distance as the revolver aimed at her head and the revolver she continued to clutch.
“Put it down, Victoria, please,” Jon managed as he raised his hands. A grimace crossed his face as his shoulder moved. He slowly dropped to his knees. “Don’t give him an excuse to hurt you.”
Years ago, when Jonathan taught her to play chess, she realized it had just been another way for him to belittle her. He stopped challenging her to games when she learned enough to begin forcing a checkmate more than half the time and winning almost as often as she lost. They’d reached checkmate.
She blinked against the burning of her eyes. Her raw throat made taking in another breath almost impossible, and she was certain her heart was shattered. The table was within arm’s reach. Without taking her gaze from Jon’s defeated form, she leaned toward the dark wood and set her revolver on the highly-polished surface.
“Slide it down the table toward me,” Colbert said.
Victoria gave the gun a shove. It spun its way down the length of the table, almost to Colbert’s reach.
As the man leaned forward to take her weapon, movement just outside the opened door caught her eye. The sharp cracking of a round being chambered home froze Colbert in the ungainly position bent over the table as Klint Caper pressed the muzzle of a rifle into the base of his skull. Curt stood next to Caper, another rifle drawn up and aimed at the wounded man’s head. Curt jacked a round home, though the muzzle never wavered.
“Push that revolver back to the sheriff, mister.” Caper’s voice never changed from his usual, light, almost teasing tone. When Colbert hesitated, Caper nudged the muzzle against his head. “Please. I don’t want to have to replace this table, and Mr. Brokken would insist I do that because if I pull this trigger, the round will go clean through your skull and through Mr. Brokken’s shiny table.”
“You’re right.” Karl stepped into the room, a third rifle aimed at the man brandishing the club over Jon. “You’d ruin the table and then you’d have to buy a new one. You can’t afford to do that.”
“Especially on the salary you pay me,” Caper quipped.
The levity in Klint Caper’s voice felt grotesque everything considered. Victoria quelled the urge to scream. Less than five feet away from her, a man she’d never seen before pointed a gun at her head. Jon was on his knees, grimacing in pain, hands behind his head while another man brandished what she recognized as a blackjack over Jon’s head.
“You can’t see what’s behind you, mister, but there are two more rifles aimed at your boys.” The lightness faded from Caper’s voice. “I’ve asked you once to slide that revolver back to the sheriff. I won’t ask again.”
The revolver returned to Victoria along the same path it had taken. Victoria seized the gun and then aimed it at the man holding a weapon on her. “On the table,” she said, jerking her chin at the massive piece.
When he hesitated, Curt said, “It isn’t worth dying for. Whatever he’s paying you, I doubt it’s enough to merit throwing your life away. Do what the sheriff told you to do.”
The glare Colbert’s man shot Victoria sent a shudder through her. He held that glare the whole time he slowly lowered his weapon and then placed it on the table. “Everyone in this town do what you tell ’em to do?”
“The smart ones do.” To her amazement, her voice didn’t break or tremble.
Without any seeming cue from Caper, Curt rounded the table on one side, Karl the other and both gestured with the cocked and aimed rifles for Colbert’s men to move away from her and Jon. “Separate corners, boys,” Caper suggested, though there was no doubt in Victoria’s mind it wasn’t a suggestion.
As soon as Curt and Karl had Colbert’s men in corners, Victoria holstered her revolver and helped Jon to his feet. The color drained from his face when he moved his left arm, and his right hand went to his shoulder, a grimace of intense pain twisting his features.
“I think the collarbone broke,” Jon said.
Caper twisted a fist into the collar of Colbert’s tweed frock coat, pulling the man erect. “What do you want us to do with these three, Sheriff?”
Jon cradled his arm. His jaw clenched and sweat beaded on his brow.
The temptation to pistol whip all three of them materialized, and just as quickly dissolved. Victoria wrapped an arm around Jon’s waist. “I’m taking you to see Mathew.”
Jon barely nodded, a deeper grimace marring the planes of his face with the motion.
“Sheriff?”
Victoria turned her attention to Caper though she aimed her words at Colbert. “You come into my town, point a gun at me, question my integrity, abuse my husband...Put them in the jail, Mr. Caper, and wait there for me, if you would.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You’re arresting us?” Colbert’s round face flushed a bright red and his voice rose in pitch.
“You catch on fast,” Victoria shot at him, as she assisted Jon through the door. “I
’ll send the doctor to the jail for your friend.”
WITH HIS ARM IMMOBILIZED with layers of wide linen, one of Abigail’s poultices lathered thickly over the break in his collarbone, and dosed with laudanum for the pain, Jon slid into sleep, as Mathew said he should. Victoria and Abigail left him to sleep in the front parlor of the former brothel.
“I have to go to the jail,” Victoria said, keeping her voice at a soft whisper.
Abigail shook her head, catching her arm. “No. You said Klint is there. I can’t imagine that Curt or Karl aren’t with him. You need a few minutes.”
At the mention of the Brokken brother’s names, a white-hot anger seared through her chest. If either of them had mentioned they thought they saw Jonathan at the head of that outlaw gang six months ago—if any of the four of the Brokken siblings, for that matter had mentioned it—she wouldn’t be at the impasse she found herself. And, Jon wouldn’t have had to try to live a total lie. How easy it seemed to be for every single one of the Brokkens to lie.
“I don’t have the time. I have to figure out how to save Jon’s life.” An indistinct murmur sounded in the room behind her. Victoria looked over her shoulder, assuring herself Jon was still asleep. “I can’t keep those three men locked up at all.”
“You’ve got a little bit of time, at least until Jon’s shoulder heals. Surely they wouldn’t drag him across country on horseback with...” Abigail trailed off.
Victoria wasn’t sure if her friend fell silent because of the disbelieving stare she shot at Abigail, or if she remembered how brutalized Jon was when he first showed up in Brokken.
“What are we going to do?”
“We? Abigail Knight, you are going to do nothing.” Victoria walked a little farther away from the opened parlor door. “If anyone asks, you were certain he was my presumed dead and miraculously returned husband.”
“What good does that do Jon?”
“Nothing.” Just saying that word burned her throat. “But it protects you from being charged and possibly convicted of aiding and abetting an escaped felon. You have Ethan and Josephine and Ezra to worry about. They need their Momma. Mathew needs his wife, too. I won’t risk you going to jail.”
“You’re not thinking of running, are you?” Abigail’s fingers tightened on her arm and tears shimmered in her friend’s eyes. “Tell me you’re not thinking that.”
For a slender moment, after Mathew determined Jon’s injury didn’t require his expertise and Abigail could handle it, Victoria had thought about pulling Jon toward the livery and mounting up with a hoped-for destination anywhere south of the Rio Grande. Victoria slowly shook her head. She pulled Abigail into her for a long hug. “No, I’m not. I admit, I did entertain the idea for a few moments. But what kind of a life would that be for either Jon or me?”
When they parted, Abigail wiped her eyes, sniffed, and then asked, “So what are we going to do to help your husband?”
The sting behind her eyes had to be from exhaustion. Victoria managed a weak smile. “You’re going to stay here and take care of him. Keep a loaded gun handy. Anyone walks through that door you don’t recognize, shoot. Shoot to kill, because as sure as the sun is going to rise in the east tomorrow, they’ll be here to try to take Jon, and they will kill him.”
That seemed to take some of the starch out of Abigail.
“I’m going to go see Levinson and send a telegram to Judge Davis. Maybe, he can sort this whole mess out. Then, I’m going to the jail and cut Colbert’s men loose and tell those two they have five minutes to get out of town or I arrest them and charge them with vagrancy.” She looked over her shoulder again. “Abby, when the Andrews gang showed up, Fritz swears he saw Jonathan leading them.”
“Fritz? Fritz couldn’t tell the truth to save his own soul.” Abigail’s soft, quiet laugh soothed the jagged edges of Victoria’s heart. She startled when Abigail flung her arms around her and hugged her again. “I heard that story from Deb. I told her if she ever repeated it to you, I would make sure she had something slipped into her morning coffee that would prevent her from ever speaking again. You didn’t need that kind of ridiculous, idle chatter in your life. Not then and certainly not now.”
With a last look into the parlor, assuring herself Jon was sufficiently pain-free and still sleeping due to the laudanum, Victoria left the Knight home. Her telegram to Judge Davis asked him to come to Brokken as soon as possible. And, then she made her way to the jail in a driving downpour.
The sound of rushing water faintly carried to her. If the rains didn’t stop soon, the houses in the low-lying parts of town would begin to flood. So far, that hadn’t happened. As it was, Brokken was cut off from the rest of the world. Levinson had to telegraph the railroad office to cancel runs into town as the tracks were under water and there was no manner to ascertain if the railbed hadn’t washed away. Just another worry added to her substantial list of problems.
She slogged through the mud, unable to avoid the puddles growing into small ponds in the road. The sight of so many people in the jail took her back when she opened the door. Both cells were occupied—by Colbert and his men. Mathew tied off the last of what appeared to be several stitches in the injured man’s arm.
Victoria berated herself for the inaccuracy of her shot. Forced to be honest with herself, she had been aiming to kill the man.
Curt, Karl, and Klint were gathered around her desk, Klint with his muddy boots propped on her desk. Victoria quelled the urge to snap at him to get his filthy feet off her property. If it weren’t for the former sharpshooter, Colbert and his men would already be several hours out of town, Jon with them and being battered—if not already dead. She turned her attention to the oldest Brokken.
“Curt, outside, please. I want a word.”
Curt levered himself off the edge of the desk. “Probably more than one,” he muttered.
Victoria slammed the door shut behind them. She pulled in a fortifying breath. “What made you change your mind? When you left that conference room—”
“I saw those three heading toward the bank.” Curt walked to the end of the overhang protecting the boardwalk, his back to her. “Heard the one you shot saying he’d put up five Yankee dollars to be the first to work Andrews over. The laughs from those three with that...”
Victoria’s stomach twisted and lurched. The taste of bile burned the back of her throat.
“I followed them to the bank. I don’t care what he did to end up in that prison. He was a prisoner, but he’s still a human being, not...not...” Curt’s voice broke and he slumped, as if a sudden, massive weight fell across his shoulders. “I thought I’d seen the last of that kind of barbarity when Karl and I escaped jail in Mexico. Karl was right about having to do this to save a man’s life.”
The wind shifted, blowing the chilling rain under the protective overhang. Curt lifted his head, his spine straightening, and then turned to her. “What can we do to keep Jonath—Jon out of that place?”
“A couple of hours outside of the prison, there’s a ranch called the Tumbling M. The owner is a man named Martin Carroll. I need him here, if he’s still alive, in the next couple of days.” Victoria put her back to the building, dredging up enough resolve to force herself to enter the jail again. “I sent a telegram to Judge Davis, so maybe, if Carroll is here, we can legally keep Jon out of prison.”
Curt looked over his shoulder. “I’ll leave as soon as I get some cash from the store and can put together a bedroll.”
“Curt, you’re working for me on this.”
“As the sheriff or personally?” He pivoted slowly.
“Does it matter?” she asked, wondering if she was sending him on this possible fool’s errand for purely personal reasons.
He shook his head. “No. If this Martin Carroll is still alive, I’ll bring him here.”
Chapter Eighteen
Jon slowly woke, the inside of his mouth tasting like old shoe leather. His collarbone throbbed, and his head felt as if it was in a vice. A pa
rtially opened window allowed the scent of the still falling rain to float into the room. The soft pattering and splashing rain sounded oddly close. A single low-pitched lamp cast enough illumination to determine he wasn’t in Victoria’s front parlor and it was night-time. He recognized the black teak bar. Knight’s front parlor, then...
He screwed his eyes shut with the recollection of how quickly he acceded to Colbert’s orders. Other than to push Victoria out of the way, he’d done nothing. As if fighting back or resisting had earned him anything other than a more extensive battering. She must have done something to put Colbert off, at least for a little while.
How long would this reprieve last? Maybe, it would have been better if she had allowed Colbert to take him. This was simply prolonging the inevitable.
Indistinct voices reached him. Jon sat up, barely catching himself when the room spun rapidly around him. When the dizziness passed, he swung his legs off the narrow bed and stood. He kept a firm grip on the side table next to him, but the light-headedness didn’t return.
His shirt was draped over a chair back near the cot. With his arm immobilized against his chest by the linen swaddling, pulling his shirt on proved to be a task. The empty sleeve disconcerted him. His arm was still attached, just not in working order. Tucking the shirt into his trousers was even more difficult, and he ceased the effort. Surely whoever might see him in this state would allow for his injury.
He followed the low murmur of the voices and the aroma of freshly brewed coffee. A few feet from what he assumed was the kitchen, he paused in the hallway to catch his breath. He’d forgotten how much a broken bone hurt and how exhausting it was. Victoria’s voice wrapped around him like a heavy comforter.
“When Klint, Curt, and Karl took those three to the jail, Klint had the foresight to search them. They found four sets of knucklers—”
Jon winced involuntarily. His jaw had felt the punishing blows those things inflicted when wielded by one of Colbert’s guards.