Montana Surrender

by Simmons, Trana Mae

  "Shut up!" Jessica threw over her shoulder. "I'm not going to let them hang you!"

  "Jessica...!"

  "Listen to me!" Jessica screamed at the crowd. "Do you have any idea what you're doing? If you do this, every one of you will be guilty of murder!"

  "And he's guilty of rape!" a man yelled back. "He's already escaped prison once. We're going to make sure he pays for his crime this time."

  A roar of agreement surged from the crowd and Jessica fired one of the last remaining bullets from her rifle, temporarily silencing them.

  "You don't know what you're talking about!" she screamed at them. "This is all the Bakers' doing. Where's Harlin? I'll make him admit...."

  "Here I am, Miss Callaghan," Harlin Baker called as he stepped forward on the walkway. He turned his attention immediately to the crowd of men.

  "Don't listen to her, men!" he called. "My brother and I found her out in the hills with this man. She's been helping him hide. He's her lover!"

  Angry hands reached for Cinnabar and the flow of men overpowered even the huge stallion. Jessica felt her rifle jerked from her hands as she was pulled from Cinnabar's back. A pair of hard arms circled her and dragged her onto the walkway. Suddenly another rope appeared, and a man tossed it over the sign again.

  The angry voices in the crowd drowned out Jessica's screams as a man rode up behind Storm and began to fashion the rope into another hangman's noose. She struggled wildly against the arms restraining her and a wave of agony sent tears coursing down her cheeks as she realized her attempt to reason with the crowd had failed. Harlin was going to win.

  "Oh, God! Please listen to me!" she screamed, but the man holding her finally clamped his hand over her mouth.

  All at once the tone of the crowd changed again. The men's heads began turning over their shoulders to look behind them. The angry growl died, replaced by a spreading silence, cut only by another woman's shrieking voice.

  "You're wrong! Stop this madness! Harlin's lying to you! It wasn't Storm who hurt me! Listen to me!"

  As Jessica watched in helpless astonishment, Prudence urged Spirit through the crowd, batting at men with her pistol. When one man stepped in front of her to reach for Spirit's reins, Prudence fired the pistol at his feet, sending the man back to the side of the pathway clearing for her. The man reached for his gun, but a rough dressed cowboy beside him gripped his wrist in a steely grasp.

  "You take a shot at that woman and it'll be the last damned shot you ever make," the cowboy growled in a deadly voice.

  Even behind Prudence the pathway remained open as the men stared at her in wonder while she rode through them, her once mute voice echoing over their heads.

  "I tell you, Storm didn't hurt me!" Prudence yelled. "It was David Baker!"

  Prudence finally managed to turn her horse in front of Storm, and her angry eyes flashed in the lantern light as she gazed out over the now quiet crowd.

  "David did it!" She pointed her finger at Harlin. "Your brother. And you knew it. You told me you'd kill my own brother if I told! But I couldn't tell, could I? Your brother took my voice, along with my chastity! But God gave me back my voice in time to make you both pay for all your evil ways!"

  While amazed murmurs ran through the men, Harlin surged forward. The man holding Jessica dropped his arms and lunged for him. They hit the board walkway in a heap and several more men sprang forward to secure Harlin. They jerked him to his feet and turned him back to face Prudence.

  Jessica's voice demanded that the men listen to her now.

  "David's also the man who killed Eloise," she shouted at them. "I heard them talking after they attacked Storm and me, and Harlin had plans to clean out the bank tonight while you men were busy hanging Storm. He was going to meet David out at the ranch and head for Mexico with your money before the federal marshal that's on his way gets here. Harlin's probably been stealing from the bank all along, giving David part of the money. They didn't want the marshal looking into things."

  Too late Jessica realized her words had again inflamed the crowd. The men holding Harlin began dragging him toward the horse Storm sat on, while other men pulled Storm to the ground.

  "Hang the bastard! We've had all we're going to take from those damned Baker brothers!"

  How he ever heard her, Jessica never knew, but Cinnabar responded to her wild whistle and surged over to her. She leapt toward the hitching rail in front of her, one foot making contact with the cross-post before she sprang into Cinnabar's saddle. She managed to grab the pistol from Prudence's fingers before the crowd separated the two horses.

  Jessica fired the pistol at the men's feet with her first shot. Then she trained it on one of the men holding Harlin.

  "Do you want to be the first one wounded?" she yelled. "Because I'm not going to let you make another mistake tonight. Can't you see what you're doing? You're lowering yourselves to the Bakers' level!"

  "You're a stranger here!" a man shouted from the crowd. "You don't know how we've been held hostage by Harlin and his brother."

  "Harlin and David didn't hold you hostage," Jessica fired back. "You held yourselves hostage by not standing up to them. If you want law and order in this town, you have to be willing to stand up and be proud of yourselves first."

  "Take her!" another man yelled. "We can take her."

  Storm shouldered his way through the crowd to stand by Cinnabar, his arms still bound behind him. He stood for a moment, shoulders straight and his dark eyes sweeping over the men. When he spoke, he kept his voice low, and the men quieted to hear his words.

  "And which one of you out there is going to be the first to shoot a woman? Because that's what it'll take. I know this woman behind me. She'll fight for what she believes in, and she believes you should let the law handle the Bakers. Have you sunk so low that you can't realize that Jessica's telling the truth when she says you'll be just like the Bakers if you hang Harlin without a trial first?"

  Almost half the men hung their heads and reholstered their pistols. A few silently slipped away.

  "If anyone has a score to settle with the Bakers, I do," Storm continued in a reasonable voice. "I spent six months in jail because of them, but I agree with Jessica. We can't take the law into our own hands."

  Prudence urged Spirit forward. "And I," she called to the remaining men. "They took from me what I wanted to give to the man I found to love. Have any of you lost as much as I have? Can any one of you look at me and say it wouldn't matter if the entire territory knew the woman they married had been had by another man first?"

  A mutter of shame ran through the rest of the men and they broke up into twos and threes as they walked away. A sudden spurt of activity on the walkway drew Jessica's gaze and she saw Harlin land a punch on the jaw of the remaining man holding him. Before anyone could react, he ran into the street and threw himself onto a horse tied at a hitching rail.

  "Don't!" Jessica screamed as she saw several men draw their pistols again, aiming at Harlin. "I'll get him."

  Jessica shoved the pistol into her waistband and jerked the dangling rope from above her as she kneed Cinnabar past Storm. Her hands flew as she refashioned the rope into a loop and twirled it by Cinnabar's side as he galloped after Harlin's horse. The loop flew through the air before Harlin had gone even a hundred yards, settling over his shoulders.

  Like the well-trained cow horse he was, Cinnabar threw himself back onto his haunches, jerking Harlin from the saddle. Jessica urged Cinnabar back to his feet. Hand over hand on the rope, keeping it tight, she rode Cinnabar forward.

  Several men had already gathered around Harlin. Jessica ignored them as she glared down at the prone man.

  "Dying quick is too easy for you," she said in a flat voice. "I want to see you pay for your crimes."

  "I didn't do anything," Harlin whined. "I didn't even take the money from the bank yet. You've got nothing on me."

  "You knew about everything David did and you covered up for him. Not counting the fact that I'm sure an in
vestigation of the bank will uncover your embezzlement, you're an accomplice to all the crimes David committed. You'll get plenty of prison time yourself for that, even if you don't hang alongside David for the murder of your parents and Eloise."

  "What are you talking about, Jessica?" Storm said from beside her.

  Jessica glanced down to see Storm untied now, a deadly glint emanating from his cold eyes. She flicked her wrist to loosen the rope holding Harlin and tossed it to the men surrounding him before she slid to the ground.

  "Oh, God, Storm," she said quietly. "I'd give anything if I didn't have to be the one to tell you this. But David admitted it while he took me to the Lazy B. He killed your father and Fiona because your father had changed his Will. I don't know if Harlin was there or not."

  "I wasn't!" Harlin cried. "I mean...I didn't fire even a shot. David! David did it!"

  Storm took a step forward, his fist clenched at his side.

  "Storm, please," Jessica begged as she caught his arm. "Remember what you said to the men back there."

  Storm stared at Harlin as Harlin cringed back against the men holding him.

  "Don't kill me! Please," Harlin pleaded in a bubbling voice. He threw his head sideways to fix eyes streaming with tears on one of the men beside him. "Don't let him kill me. Please!"

  Jessica turned away sickened when a wetness spread over the front of Harlin's trousers. She felt Storm reach over and take the pistol from her waistband, but she couldn't force herself to look at him. He would do what he had to do. She wouldn't beg him again.

  Storm trained the pistol on Harlin and the men holding him stepped back. Harlin fell to his knees, his head bowed over his steepled hands and his sobs echoing through the silent street.

  "Where's the sheriff?" Storm asked in a cold voice.

  "He's gone," a man standing a few feet from Harlin informed him. "He ran out the back door of the office when we went in to get you."

  "Get on your feet, Harlin!"

  "No, Storm. No. Please don't shoot me!"

  Storm lowered the pistol and his shoulders slumped. "Damn you, Harlin, I'm not going to shoot you. Get on your feet and walk over to the jail."

  Harlin raised his head as Jessica finally glanced at him again. He sat in the spill of light from a lantern one of the men held, and he turned his ravaged face hopefully up at Storm.

  "You...you mean it? You're not going to shoot me?"

  "It would sicken me to kill a yellow belly like you, Harlin," Storm told the cowering man. "But if you don't get on your feet, I'm going to start shooting into parts of you where it won't be easy for the doctor to dig the bullets out."

  Harlin scrambled to his feet and stood swaying for a moment before one of the men grabbed him and shoved him in the direction of the jail. Harlin kept glancing over his shoulder as he went, but Storm never moved to follow them.

  "You did right, Storm."

  Storm threw the pistol into the dirt and turned to Prudence. "I know," he said. "But I wanted that bastard dead with everything in me."

  "Not everything, Storm," Prudence denied. "You're too good to have followed through on killing him."

  Jessica stared at the two of them for a moment, then turned away. The tears threatened again in her eyes, for the same reason. She was still going to lose Storm, only this time not to death.

  "Where are you going, Jessica?"

  Jessica stopped, not turning around. "O...over to Idalee's. I want to see if she's there yet with Ned."

  "I'll go check for you, Jessica. Don't you want to be with Storm right now?"

  Slowly Jessica turned back to them. "Me? But you...."

  Prudence laughed low and shook her head. "Idalee told me what you thought, Jessica Callaghan. And to a point, you were right. I do love Storm, but it's the love a sister has for a brother, like I loved Tobias. And that's all Storm feels for me, too. He's only been trying to help me face things and learn to speak again. And I guess you must have that same type of love for me in your heart. You wouldn't have been willing to give up the man you love to me otherwise."

  "What's she talking about, Jessica?" Storm asked.

  Jessica ignored him and slowly raised a hand to wipe a stray tear on her cheek, keeping her gaze on Prudence.

  "Do you mean it?"

  "Of course, Jessica. I wouldn't lie to a friend, who's like my own sister."

  Jessica gave a glad cry and flung herself into Storm's arms. They tightened willingly around her and she clenched her hands around his neck as she babbled wildly to him.

  "Storm, I'm sorry. Please forget what I said about going back to Wyoming. Storm, I love you. I'll stay with you, wherever you want to live."

  "Shut up, pretty lady." Storm's lips assured him Jessica would follow his whispered order for once. A long moment later he raised his head to gaze down at Jessica's face, finding it filled with the love he had thought he would never see again.

  "I love you, pretty lady," he said softly. "I don't know what was going through that lovely head of yours, but just now I don't give a damn."

  Jessica cupped the side of his face in her hand and pulled him back for another long kiss.

  "I guess the curse is broken now," she murmured when she could speak. "If there really was such a thing."

  "Curse?" Storm asked as he caressed her cheek. "What curse?"

  "Now, don't you get the idea that I believe in ghosts or really believe in curses, Storm. I...I'm not really superstitious. It's just...for a while it seemed anyone who touched that payroll gold, or even Uncle Pete's gold, had nothing but heartache in their lives."

  "It brought us together, darlin'. And it brought David and Harlin to justice. I'd say those are blessings, not curses."

  Suddenly Storm swept her up and carried her over to the walkway. He settled himself down and pulled her into his lap, cuddling her close as he gazed out over the now silent street.

  "Now," he said. "Explain yourself, Jessica Callaghan."

  Jessica laughed up into his face. "You said a minute ago that you didn't give a damn."

  "I changed my mind," he informed her. "Do you know what you put me through back at Tobias's? Hell, all kinds of things went through my mind while I stood guard that night. Nothing mattered any more — not even clearing my name or getting my rightful share of the Lazy B. It was all ashes, unless I had you with me to share it."

  "Oh, Storm, I'm sorry."

  Quickly Jessica explained to him how she had misinterpreted Prudence's feelings and how she had felt bound not to take the mute woman's love from her.

  "It was all a mistake," she concluded. "And...." She slipped a sideways look at Storm and giggled softly. "I guess now you just have to figure out whether you want to keep Charles Baker's name or change your name again to Uncle Pete's. I rather prefer Russell, myself, but I'll use whatever name you decide on."

  Storm's arms tightened around her and a frozen look came into his eyes.

  "S...Storm?" Jessica questioned. "You are going to ask me to marry you, aren't you?"

  When Storm remained silent, Jessica pushed herself out of his arms and stood over him, her hands on her hips. "Well, if you don't, then I'll ask you! Just like Idalee asked Elias!" she said as she planted her feet firmly and glowered at him. "Will you marry me, Storm Baker — or Storm Russell?"

  Suddenly Jessica clasped a hand over her mouth. She had forgotten. He didn't know. And the fury invading Storm's eyes as he rose over her told her he wasn't a bit amused by her words.

  "What the hell are you talking about?"

  Chapter 27

  Jessica backed a step away, holding her hands up in front of her. "Storm. Listen to me Storm. I forgot you didn't know. Really, I did. So much has happened...."

  Suddenly Storm's laughter rang out and he sat back down on the steps and held out his arms.

  "Yes," he said when Jessica only stared toward him in amazement. "Yes, I'll marry you," he continued when she still gaped at him. "I don't know what you're hiding from me, but tonight I've come close
to death and watched you place yourself in danger to save me. Come here!"

  Tentatively Jessica approached him, and Storm surged forward to grab her arms and pull her back onto his lap. He held her close against him, his arms tightened into steel bands so she couldn't attempt to escape.

  As if she would, Jessica thought to herself as she realized what his hold on her meant. She snuggled her head against his neck and sighed contentedly.

  "I'm going to hold you to that, Storm. It's not every day I swallow my pride and ask a man to marry me."

  Storm's laughter rumbled in his throat and he dropped a kiss on her nose. "And you better never do it again, pretty lady," he said. "Because from here on out, you're mine alone. Whatever we have to face, we'll do it together. By the way, how did you get away from David? I should have killed that bastard...."

  Jessica straightened up abruptly. "Oh, Storm. That's something else I forgot. We've got to send someone out to the Lazy B immediately. I don't know if Maude will keep her promise or not. She already nicked David's neck once with her hatchet and I don't think she's really that stable herself."

  "Maude? Old Maude? Hatchet? Jessica...."

  Storm's astonishment allowed his arms to loosen and Jessica jumped to her feet, tugging on his hand. "Come on. Who can we send, Storm?"

  The sound of hoofbeats met their ears and Storm and Jessica turned to see a lone rider coming down the street.

  "That's Elias," Storm said unnecessarily. Jessica, too, had recognized the horse.

  "Guess I missed all the action," Elias said with a tired sigh as he pulled his horse up to them. "What happened?"

  Storm held the reins of Elias's horse as he swung down. He explained the previous events in a few, short sentences.

  Too few and too short, Jessica thought. How could so much be condensed into so few words? She held her tongue until Storm finished, then spoke up.

  "We need to find someone to get David from the Lazy B, Elias. Or maybe we should go ourselves."

  "That won't be necessary, Jessica," Elias informed her. "There's a few men in town we can trust. I'll go round them up and send them on their way. But what's this about some woman out there with a hatchet?"