The Bargain Mail Order Bride

by Ruth Ann Nordin

  “Twelve.”

  “And you profited from this?”

  She nodded. “The money was spent as soon as we got it.” Clearing her throat, she added, “Drinks, women, and song.”

  His eyes lit up with understanding. “I see. Your brothers don’t know how to save money. Is that why you stopped helping them with the robberies?”

  “No. One of the men we stole money from had a lot of gold coins with him. What I didn’t know until after we robbed him was that he had a sick wife who needed surgery. The surgery was expensive, and he was going to a hospital with her to pay for it. I felt awful. I just couldn’t take that kind of life anymore. I took those gold coins to his wife, but I wore a bandana over my mouth and a wig so she wouldn’t be able to describe me to her husband. I didn’t tell her how we stole the money. I just said it belonged to him and hurried away before anyone could track me down. I did steal some money from my brothers, but it was only enough so I could hide while I waited for a man to marry.”

  “Aha! So you did steal money from me,” Sammy snapped.

  “You mean from all of us,” Tim spoke up, looking at Sammy.

  “I took twenty dollars. Enough to get clothes, food, and to come up here.” Looking at Eric, she added, “I wasn’t sure how long it would take to get a husband.”

  The door flew open, and Carl stomped into the jail, making a beeline directly to them. Noting the anger on Carl’s face, Juliet stepped back.

  But Carl didn’t focus that anger on her as she feared he would. Instead, he directed it at Eric. “Get her out of there,” he demanded, gesturing to her cell.

  “I can’t do that,” Eric told him.

  “You mean you won’t.”

  “No, I mean I can’t. She’s wanted for theft and murder.”

  “I didn’t murder anyone,” she inserted before Carl could think the worst. Not that theft was good, but she wasn’t willing to let Carl think she was capable of killing someone.

  Carl glanced at her. “See? She didn’t do it. Let her out.”

  “That’s not how it works,” Eric replied.

  “Why not?” Carl asked. “Doesn’t the law say everyone’s innocent until proven guilty?”

  “I can’t let her out until the judge comes to this town. He’ll need to hear her case.”

  “You didn’t put me in jail when everyone thought I murdered Lydia. There’s no reason for her to stay in there until the judge comes.”

  “There was reasonable doubt in your case,” Eric replied.

  “There’s reasonable doubt with her case, too.”

  “No, there’s not. She might not have confessed to murder, but she admitted to theft.”

  Carl glanced at her again, and she could tell he wished she hadn’t done it.

  “I had to tell the truth,” she told him. Turning her attention to Eric, she added, “Carl didn’t know anything.” Sammy snorted, and she glared at him. “It’s true. I never said a word to Carl about any of the things my brothers and I did.”

  “The things they did,” Carl told Eric, pointing to her brothers. “She wasn’t in it alone. They were in on it, too, and I bet you they forced her to do it. You can tell by looking at them that they’re not the sort you want to be around.”

  “That’s speculation,” Eric said.

  “Speculation? You believe her when she says she was involved in theft, but you won’t believe her when she tells you her brothers had something to do with it?”

  “Her brothers didn’t confess to any crimes,” Eric replied. “She did. Right now it’s her word against theirs.”

  She approached the bars. “Carl.” She urged him to come over to her.

  Carl hesitated, shook his head in irritation at Eric, and went over to her.

  Noting the fact that everyone was watching them, she asked, “Can you give us a moment alone?”

  “Alright.” Eric waved for her brothers to follow him out of the jailhouse.

  “No way,” Sammy argued. “What if he’s going to help her escape?”

  “She’s not going to escape,” Eric said. “There’s only one way out, and we’ll be standing by the door.”

  “She’s thinking about escaping,” Sammy barked.

  “No, I’m not,” she said. “If I was going to do that, I wouldn’t have told Eric the truth.”

  “Sammy, Tim, Micah.” Eric nodded toward the door. “Let’s go.”

  Tim and Micah looked at Sammy, as they always did, for guidance. And since Sammy relented and headed on out, they followed.

  She waited until they were gone before turning her attention back to Carl.

  He put his hands on the bars and whispered, “We can find a way out of here. I’ll wait until it’s late at night and bring a horse. Eric can’t be here all the time. When he kept Ida here overnight, he didn’t spend the night here. He locked up the jailhouse and went home. I’ll find a way in, and we’ll get out of this town before anyone can find us.”

  “Carl, didn’t you hear what I said? I’m not innocent. I had a hand in stealing money from good, honest men.”

  “You had all this time to steal from me, and you didn’t. Even after finding all that gold in the stream, you stayed here. You could have gone to Canada by yourself, but you didn’t. You’re not a thief. I know how people are, and your brothers made you do it. You didn’t have a choice. That’s why you got out of Texas. You wanted to escape that kind of life.”

  “Yes, I did, but it doesn’t matter because I did have a part in the crimes.” She put her hands over his. “It’s too late for me. I’m not getting out of this. But it’s not too late for you. You can still go to Canada.”

  “I can’t go to Canada without you.”

  “I know it’s not what we planned, but getting out of this town is what you’ve wanted ever since you were a child. If both of us can’t realize that dream, then one of us should.”

  He blinked back his tears and shook his head. “No. I can’t. What good is the dream if you’re not going to share it with me?”

  “Well, there’s nothing I can do. There’s a bounty on my head for $25,000. This is serious. I’m not getting out of this.”

  “There’s got to be something.” He looked over at the door. “I need to talk to Eric. Maybe we can work something out.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m not sure yet. I have to talk to him and see what comes up in the conversation.” He let go of the bars and headed for the door.

  “Carl,” she called out after him.

  But he didn’t answer. He opened the door and shut it behind him.

  With a sigh, she went over to the cot and sat down. She didn’t think any good would come out of the conversation. Eric was a good man, but he also had a responsibility to the law and, as he pointed out, it was her word against her brothers’. Since there were three of them and only one of her, she didn’t see how things could work out in her favor. She scanned the bars around her. Did they hang women who had a $25,000 bounty on their heads, or did they let them spend the rest of their lives in prison?

  ***

  Carl found Eric right by the door and Juliet’s brothers standing a few feet away. Two of them pretended to be studying something on the ground while the third—probably the leader of the whole group—stared at him. Carl met his gaze without flinching. If it was a fight the man was looking for, he’d oblige him. After what he did to Juliet, he deserved a good punch in the jaw.

  “I don’t want any trouble,” Eric told the two men. “Sammy, take your brothers to the hotel.”

  “What are you going to do with Juliet?” Sammy asked.

  “Nothing for now,” Eric replied.

  “She confessed to the thefts,” Sammy said, his voice demanding Eric do something at once.

  Carl took a step toward Sammy, his hand clenched at his side, but Eric got in front of him. “I’m the sheriff,” Eric said. “You let me deal with this.”

  Carl shifted from one foot to the other before he finally relen
ted. He needed Eric to work with him. Eric wouldn’t do that if he made things difficult for him.

  While Eric went over to Juliet’s brothers and talked to them in a low voice, Carl returned to the door and leaned against the building. His eyes rose upward. If only he’d been more careful in November. Then he and Juliet would already be in Canada. But no. He’d gotten careless. He had put too much pay dirt into the wheelbarrow, and the weight caused him to lose his balance when the wheel of the wheelbarrow passed over the slippery patch of ground.

  Eric returned to him as her brothers headed off in the direction of the hotel.

  “You can’t keep her in jail,” Carl said. “It’s obvious her brothers made her rob those people.”

  “How much did you know about this?” Eric asked.

  Surprised, Carl paused. “What?”

  “I need you to tell me the truth. If you want there to be any chance that she’ll go free, you need to be honest with me.”

  Carl didn’t want to answer him. It would require telling Eric a lot more than he wanted him to know, but Juliet had chosen to confess. If she had remained silent, then there would have been nothing substantial for Eric to hold onto. He hadn’t seen the Wanted poster. Eric would only have had the information her brothers had given him, and that would have bought Carl enough time to work on a plan to keep Juliet’s role in the thefts a secret until they had a chance to get to Canada. That option, however, wasn’t available, so all he could do was follow her lead.

  “How much did you know about all of this before today?” Eric asked.

  Carl let out a long sigh. “I knew she was an outlaw, and I knew she was worth $25,000.” Even as he said it, he winced.

  “When did you find out?”

  “I don’t remember the exact day, but it was while Juliet and I were here to buy supplies to get us through the winter.” When it was obvious Eric expected him to elaborate, he added, “I was there when the stagecoach brought the mail in. One of the bags full of mail fell out, and as I was helping one of the men put the mail back into the bag, one of the items was a Wanted poster.”

  Eric frowned. “Weren’t you and Juliet buying those supplies before you came over to my house to have lunch with me, Caroline, Travis, and Allie?”

  “Yes,” he forced out.

  “So you knew Juliet was an outlaw the entire time you were in my home? Eating my food?”

  “What was I supposed to say, Eric? That the woman I loved was on a Wanted poster? You just got through telling me that the law is black and white and that there’s no room for mercy in it.”

  “Did you tell her you found the poster?”

  “No. I was afraid she’d get scared and run off.”

  “Where is it?”

  “I don’t have it. I burned it so no one would see it.”

  Eric crossed his arms. “Did you know why she was on that poster?”

  “No. She never told me, and I never asked.”

  “You two might have thought that by hiding things from each other you were protecting one another, but that’s not how it works. You were an accomplice in her crimes the minute you chose to keep that Wanted poster a secret.”

  “It’s so easy for you to say that from where you’re standing. You have nothing to lose in all of this.” He rubbed his eyes and decided on a different tactic. “Just take a moment to look at this from my perspective. What if it was Caroline who was on that poster? Would you have thrown her in jail?”

  “We’re not talking about Caroline.”

  “That’s not my point.” Realizing he was yelling, Carl looked around to see if anyone was watching them. For once, no one was. Relieved, he forced his voice to return to normal and continued, “This is why I didn’t tell you. I knew you would have this reaction. I would have begged you to hear her out, to let her give you her side of the story. And I would have hoped you would show her some mercy.”

  Carl paused then added, “Eric, I know her. She’s not Lydia. If it was Lydia, I wouldn’t have had any trouble telling you about the poster. Lydia did a lot of things that weren’t against the law, but they were still wrong. And she got away with all of it until Jerry stopped her. Look, I recognize the look in her brother’s eyes. The oldest one. He has the same look Lydia did. He puts on a polite façade to those he wants something from, but he is not what he seems. He put Juliet up to everything she did, and I think he put her other brothers up to it, too, because it’s obvious they’re scared of him.”

  “There’s no way to prove any of that.”

  “Not if you insist on being upfront and honest with everyone. If you want to catch a rat, you have to set a trap. You can’t let him know where it is. That’s why Jerry pretended he was going to leave town with Lydia. It was the only way he could take care of her. I’m not making excuses for Lydia’s murder. I’m not making excuses for Juliet stealing money, either. But your persistence in letting everyone know everything you’re doing is going to enable that oldest brother to get away with his own crimes.”

  Eric shot him a pointed look. “You didn’t listen to what I just said. I said there’s no way to prove her brothers were in on the crimes. If they suspect I’m aware of what they’re doing, they’re not going to let something slip. I’m playing along with them, alright? You have to trust me on this.”

  “Well, great,” Carl replied, not hiding his sarcasm. “So let them run around town and let them do whatever they want.”

  “It’s not like that.”

  “You have no control over what they’re doing while they’re free. They could very well steal from someone.”

  “I’ll deal with that if the time comes.”

  Carl bit back his irritation. Why was he spending so much time worrying about what her brothers were doing? He had more important things to deal with. “Since Juliet confessed, then can’t you do something to help her?”

  “What she did was wrong.”

  Carl threw his hands up in the air, ready to yell. How could Eric not realize how difficult he was being? How could he not understand why Carl didn’t want to say anything when he found that poster? He knew Eric would react like this. He just knew it! And Eric was proving him right.

  There had to be something he could do to convince Eric to let her go. But what? He paced in front of the jailhouse several times before an idea came to him.

  “What if I pay the bounty?” Carl asked, facing Eric.

  Eric paused as he considered the idea.

  “Come on, Eric,” Carl said. “That money is more than enough to make up for everything she did. I’m willing to give up everything I have for her. If she ever goes back to a life of crime, which she won’t, you can put the crime on me. You can put us both in jail.”

  “Well, I suppose that might work, but do you have enough to cover the bounty? That’s a lot of money.”

  Seeing that Eric was finally relenting, Carl became encouraged. “I have most of it from the gold I recently found in the stream. I’ll go back and pan for the rest. You won’t let the judge take her from here before I can get all the money to you, will you?”

  “The judge isn’t due in for another week. Two at the most.”

  A week. He could work with a week. And if it was two, then that was all the better. Relieved, he started to go into the jailhouse but then turned back and shook Eric’s hand. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me unless I can convince the judge to go along with this.”

  Carl decided not to listen to the cautious tone in Eric’s voice. He would get the rest of the money, and he would convince the judge to let her go if he had to. Somehow, someway, he would make it work.

  As soon as he ran into the jailhouse, Juliet jumped up from the cot and hurried over to the bars. “What’s wrong?”

  He hurried over to her. “Nothing’s wrong. I’m going to get you out of here.”

  “I can’t escape, Carl,” she whispered, glancing at the door.

  “It’s not about escaping. I’m going to get you out through honest
means. I’m going to pay your bounty.”

  “But my bounty is $25,000.”

  “I’ll use the gold we found and get the rest of it from the stream.”

  She clasped the bars and shook her head. “Carl, I can’t ask you to do that. It’s too much money.”

  “The money is no good to me if I can’t have you. We’ll just have to make a life here.” He cupped her face with his hands. “I can be happy as long as you’re with me. I know you’re not to blame for those thefts. I know it was your brothers who made you do them.” He caressed her cheeks. “I love you, and I’m not going to let anything come between us. We’re in this together. For better or worse. Richer or poorer. Sickness or in health. No matter what happens, I’m not going to desert you.”

  A tear fell from her eye, and he wiped it away. “I love you, Carl.”

  “I know.” He wished the bars weren’t between them so he could hold her, but soon enough, he would get her out of this cell and he could hold her then. “I’m going back to the stream, and I’m not going to quit until I have enough gold to get you out.”

  He caressed her cheeks once more before he hurried on out to get the money necessary to pay her bounty.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The next morning, Juliet woke up to the sound of a tray being set on a hard surface. She stirred in her cot and opened her eyes in time to see Caroline putting a bowl on Eric’s desk before she picked up a second one. Juliet hadn’t seen her since the day she’d gone with Carl to have lunch with her, so she was surprised to see that Caroline was expecting a child. By the looks of it, she was probably six or seven months along.

  “Can I sit with Juliet in the cell while she eats?” Caroline asked Eric.

  “Sure.” He rose from his seat and went to unlock Juliet’s cell. “Juliet, I want to talk to you after Caroline leaves.”

  Juliet frowned. What else could he possibly have to ask her?

  “Everyone will think better on a full stomach,” Caroline told Juliet.

  “The same can be said for a full night’s sleep,” he replied. Glancing at Juliet, he asked, “Did you have a good night’s sleep?”