The Lawman Takes a Wife

by Anne Avery

  The sharp tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat sound of a string of fireworks going off brought a sudden silence to the throng of picnickers. For a moment, everyone craned, trying to see where the sound came from. Then someone laughed and the crowd came back to life. No one blinked when the second round of fireworks went off, or the third.

  Molly sighed and reluctantly got to her feet. “I suppose I’d better go find him. If you’ll watch the lunch…?”

  Witt nodded. He didn’t dare stand for fear the whole world would see what kind of effect she had on him.

  “I’ll show you where he went!” Bonnie offered, jumping up to follow her.

  To his dismay, Witt found matters just got worse when he watched Molly walk away, head high, skirts gracefully swaying.

  The flags mounted on the telegraph poles along Main Street waved gently in the breeze while the heavy banners strung on ropes across the street flapped and swayed and billowed. Everything else was still and utterly silent. Without a brass band playing, without the excited crowds that had lined the street this morning, the place seemed oddly empty and forlorn.

  “Why would he come this way?” Molly glanced up and down the street, irritably searching for any sign of her son. She wanted to get back to Witt, not waste time looking for Dickie.

  “He said the bank robbers were headed this way,” Bonnie said. “If they really are bank robbers,” she added darkly, “then I guess they’ll be at the bank.”

  Molly glanced at her daughter, then laughed and gave her a quick hug. “I guess they will. Shall we go see if they are?”

  They were two doors down from the bank when the explosion hit.

  The heavy boom! coming from the center of town sounded absolutely nothing like firecrackers.

  After a moment’s frozen surprise, Witt spat out his half-eaten mouthful of chicken and sprang to his feet. He was already running when the crowd in the park buzzed back to frightened life.

  “Dynamite!” he heard someone shout. “That was dynamite!”

  “The mines!” someone else cried.

  “No, no! It was downtown! Dynamite downtown!”

  Molly and Bonnie had headed downtown, looking for Dickie.

  Witt grabbed the nearest saddled horse. Without stopping to find the stirrups, he swung into the saddle and kicked the beast into a gallop. Behind him, he could hear the sounds of men shouting, of people running, but he didn’t wait to see who followed.

  Outside Elk City State Bank, hell repeated itself.

  There was the bank, its windows blown out. There were the robbers—two of them, both armed and dangerously frightened—running from the bank carrying big, well-stuffed canvas money sacks.

  And there were the children. Only this time, the children were Dickie and Bonnie and they weren’t fifty feet away, wondering what was going on.

  The first robber had a cursing, kicking Dickie by the collar—Witt could see the barrel of a deadly .45 poking up by the boy’s ear as the man tried to hold on to both gun and boy even as he struggled with the cumbersome money sacks and the dog clamped around his right ankle. Despite the mouthful of trouser and boot, Pete was growling and snarling enough for a dozen dogs.

  The second man was trying to fight off an enraged Bonnie, who’d grabbed hold of one of the three money bags and dug in her feet. He kept cursing and swinging the heavy bag, trying to shake her off, but she was hanging on as tenaciously as Pete. She didn’t seem to be doing as much damage—the first robber was starting to limp.

  “Let my brother go!” she screeched. “You let him go!”

  Witt swung out of the saddle, then, with a hard slap to its rump, sent the horse trotting off. No one had yet noticed him. He pulled his gun and cautiously moved forward.

  At least they weren’t shooting. If he could stop them before the crowd caught up, maybe they never would.

  He forced aside the ugly memory of two other robbers who had. He didn’t dare let those memories influence his judgment now.

  Molly suddenly appeared in the bank doorway. Her hat was half off and Witt could see a thin trickle of blood staining the side of her face.

  “Stop them!” she cried. “Stop them! Let my son go!”

  The first robber let Dickie go, then turned toward the bank and Molly. His arm came up.

  Witt raised his gun and fired, then fired again and again and again.

  Chapter Twenty

  The shots shattered the bank’s wooden flagpole, freeing the rope that spanned the street and sending it and the heavy banners tied to it tumbling down on top of the robbers’ heads. The first man’s gun went flying. The second man dropped one of his money bags, then tried to pick it up again and dropped his gun instead.

  “Bonnie! Dickie! Run!” Witt roared, diving for the free end of the rope.

  Swinging wide, he dragged the rope in a circle, sending the two men tumbling. Pete got thumped, cursed, kicked, smashed and pounded, which only seemed to make him bite down harder.

  Dickie dashed in and snatched up the first robber’s gun. Holding it two-fisted, he waved it menacingly in the thieves’ general direction.

  “Put ’em up! We got ya covered! Put ’em up or I’ll shoot!”

  To Witt’s immense relief, he’d forgotten to cock the thing. “Dickie—”

  The gun’s owner got one hand free and clouted Dickie on the ear, sending him tumbling, too. Dickie hadn’t stopped rolling when Bonnie launched herself at the man like a mountain lion at its prey.

  “Don’t you dare hit my brother!” she shrieked, pounding on the hapless robber. “Bully! Meanie! Pick on somebody your own size!”

  The man cowered under the furious rain of blows, futilely trying to protect his head. She slapped him, socked him and punched him, then landed a solid kick to the ribs for good measure. “Stinking pile of dog poop!”

  “Hey, hey! That’s enough!” Witt grabbed her around the waist and swung her away.

  “Don’t you ever hit my little brother again!” She lashed out with her foot, clobbering the fellow on the side of his head and sending him sprawling. “Nobody hurts my brother! Nobody!”

  She was still swinging and kicking when Witt set her on her feet in front of Molly.

  “Hold her!” he shouted over his shoulder as he plunged back into the fray.

  Another loop with the rope and a couple of well-aimed punches settled things so that by the time Elk City’s citizens charged onto the scene, matters were pretty much under control.

  Mike McCord was one of the first to arrive. He eyed the bank’s broken windows, the crudely trussed robbers with Dickie standing guard over them, and grinned. “Keepin’ all the fun to yourself, are you?”

  Witt frowned at him, then snatched the big .45 out of Dickie’s hands. “Give me that gun.”

  “I almost shot ’im, didn’t I?” Dickie said, near bursting with pride.

  “Almost.” Witt gave a silent prayer of thanks that the boy hadn’t managed more. “Now call off your dog.”

  “And I stopped ’em from robbin’ the bank, didn’t I?” Dickie insisted.

  “That, too. But next time you decide to pull a stunt like that,” Witt said sternly, “don’t!”

  He left the job of untangling the robbers to Mike and crossed to where Molly stood at the edge of the crowd, watching them anxiously and trying to keep a still furious Bonnie under control. She’d wiped the blood from her face, but a bruise was already starting to form at her temple.

  He didn’t have a chance to ask how she felt because she threw herself into his arms first, laughing and crying. And then she kissed him, right there in front of God and everybody.

  After the first moment of stunned surprised, he kissed her back. And then he kissed her again. And again. And again.

  If it hadn’t been for McCord tapping him on the shoulder, he might never have come up for air.

  “What you wanta do with these two?” Mike inquired with a grin, cocking his thumb at the prisoners.

  Witt managed to stifle the first three suggestion
s that came to mind.

  “Talk to them,” he said, regretfully letting Molly go. He couldn’t walk away, though. The memory of her in that bank doorway and the sight of that purpling bruise had toppled the last of his defenses. He took a deep breath, then slowly let it out.

  “I love you, Molly Calhan,” he said, and gently touched her cheek. “We’ll talk about the rest later. All right?”

  And then he bent to kiss her again, heedless of the rude, good-natured cheering from the gathering crowd.

  By the time Witt got back to the business at hand, five armed miners were standing guard over the collected mailbags, Mike was guarding two very unhappy would-be thieves with the help of Dickie and his dog, and Gordon Hancock had stormed onto the scene, full of outrage and bluster.

  “You’re fired, Gavin,” he shouted. “Do you hear? Fired! How could you let this happen? It’s your responsibility—”

  “Hancock?” said Witt.

  “What?”

  “Shut up.”

  He said it mildly, in an almost conversational tone, but the banker must have seen something in his face. Hancock shut up.

  The crowd edged closer, clearly pleased with this new development.

  Witt turned to the two robbers, studying them thoughtfully.

  “Gotta tell you boys,” he said, “it’s gonna be a job fillin’ out all the paperwork for the judge.”

  The first robber, the one who’d grabbed Dickie, sneered and tried to look tough. Number two didn’t bother to try.

  “There’s armed robbery,” said Witt, calmly ticking off the items on his fingers. “Attempted kidnapping, assault and battery—”

  “What?” said number one.

  “You hit Mrs. Calhan. And the boy.”

  “He hit me first!”

  “Attempted murder—”

  “The hell you say!”

  “You were going to shoot Mrs. Calhan.”

  “I wasn’t gonna shoot her,” the man objected, indignant. “Just wanted t’scare her, make her shut up.”

  “Intimidation…”

  The man’s eyes bulged, but this time he kept silent.

  Witt frowned, then casually rubbed his bruised knuckles. He glanced at Hancock, who was following the conversation with growing impatience. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Hiram Goff slinking around the edges of the growing crowd.

  He turned his attention back to the thieves. “I might consider dropping a couple of those charges if you tell me how you knew the mine payrolls had been delivered early.”

  The robbers looked at each other, then back at him. Robber number two was the first to crack.

  “That fella from the bank was the one set us up,” he cried. “He was the one told us what t’do!”

  “What?” Hancock’s face turned red. Suddenly, a pistol was in his hand. “Why you miserable swine—”

  Witt’s fist connected with Hancock’s chin with a satisfying thud. Hancock’s head snapped back. Witt hit him again, harder this time. Like a tree felled by a lumberjack, Hancock toppled backward, unconscious before he even hit the ground.

  “Not him. Him,” said the robber, pointing.

  At the edge of the befuddled crowd, Hiram Goff gave a panicked squeak and tried to run. An instant later, he dived nose-first into the dirt with one small boy wrapped around one leg and one small, nondescript brown mutt nipping at the other.

  “Got ’im!” Dickie crowed, cheerfully dodging Goff’s furious, thrashing kick. “I got ’im!”

  Pete barked and wagged his tail in approval.

  “Is it all over?” Molly demanded a few hours later when Witt was finally settled at her kitchen table with the remains of lunch on a plate in front of him.

  She’d spent the intervening hours scolding her two children in between bouts of crying and hugging them and checking one more time to make sure they were all right. And whenever she wasn’t doing that, she’d thought of Witt and all the wonderful years that lay ahead, and almost danced with the sheer joy of it.

  But now she wanted answers to a couple of nagging questions. “What have you done with the robbers?”

  Witt added extra sugar to his coffee. “Goff and the two thieves are well on their way to Gunnison. Bigger jail there,” he explained when she looked surprised. “Bigger and a whole lot more secure. Everyone figured it’d be safer that way.”

  “And you didn’t go with them?”

  He shook his head. “I’m stayin’ here to keep an eye on things. Hancock’s moved that payroll money into the other banks until Friday and got somebody to board up the windows until he can get them fixed, but he insists I gotta watch the place, just in case.”

  He took a sip of coffee, then signed in satisfaction. “Now that’s good coffee.”

  She waved the compliment aside. “I’m surprised Gordon Hancock hasn’t demanded your resignation after you hit him like that. I thought he’d never come to.”

  Witt tried to look contrite. “There was something said about needing a new sheriff,” he admitted, “but I don’t think anyone else paid much attention in the confusion.”

  “He’ll bring it up at the next town council meeting,” Molly warned.

  “I expect he will. Say! You got any more of that potato salad?”

  “Don’t change the subject!” Molly dumped a generous heap on his plate, anyway. “If you’re staying here, who went with the thieves?”

  “The mayor deputized Mike McCord and four other men to watch ’em. Guess he figured Goff was such a slippery fellow that he might escape, otherwise.”

  Something in the way he said it, in the laughter she could hear just beneath the surface of the words, put Molly on the alert.

  “You knew it wasn’t Hancock,” she said accusingly. “All the time you knew.”

  For a moment, she didn’t think he was going to answer, then a slow, tantalizing grin spread across his face.

  “Yeah, I knew but I’ve never been a man to pass up an opportunity.”

  “Is that so?”

  He nodded. The twinkle in those changeable eyes was almost irresistible.

  Molly eyed him suspiciously. “How did you know? Did you really believe Dickie’s story about the bank robbers?”

  “No. Wish I had. But I was interested in Mrs. Thompson always arguin’ over her account.”

  “But she argues over every penny she ever spent!”

  “True. But I doubt even the penny-pinchin’est fool in the world would accuse a bank of stealing her money unless she had pretty good reason to believe they had. Hancock didn’t strike me as the type to fiddle with a small account like that, but Goff did.”

  “And Mrs. Thompson was right?”

  Witt nodded. “Goff really was stealing. Once we got him talkin’, he confessed to everything. How he’s been ‘borrowing,’ as he likes to put it, a little bit here and there for years. But eventually it started getting away from him. He knew a careful review of the books would show what he’d been up to, so he found two fellows who were just stupid enough to agree to rob the bank for him. They’d blow up the books when they blew up the safe, then give him a share of whatever they got away with.”

  “And if they didn’t get away, then you’d be there to shoot them. They’d be dead, the records would be destroyed, and Goff would still be safe.”

  Witt’s smile vanished. “That’s what he figured.”

  For a moment their gazes locked across the table, then somehow she was out of her chair and in his arms, shaking and fighting back tears.

  “I was so scared,” she said. It was scarcely more than a whisper. “Dickie and Bonnie. You.”

  “Not half as scared as I was,” Witt said softly, rocking her and cradling her against him. “When I saw you come out of that bank with the blood tricklin’ down your face…”

  His hold on her tightened convulsively.

  “I love you, Molly Calhan,” he said, voice tight with remembered fear. “I love you and I know damn well I can’t live without you no matter how many
times I’ve tried to convince myself I can.”

  She gave a choked, tearful laugh and shifted in his arms so she could look up into his face. “Does this mean you’ll marry me, Witt Gavin?”

  “I—I guess it does.” He laughed, too, and his voice was just as shaky as hers. “If you’re fool enough to have me.”

  “I guess I am, because I don’t have any intention of letting you get away, you know.”

  “I know,” he said, and kissed her.

  It was a long, long kiss, and it carried the world in it.

  “Do you—” Witt said when they finally came up for air. He swallowed, then tried again. “Do you think Pete might possibly escape again tonight?”

  “He might,” Molly said, and laughed. “I can’t say for sure, but there’s a very good chance he might. A very, very good chance he might.”

  ISBN: 978-1-4603-5990-7

  THE LAWMAN TAKES A WIFE

  Copyright © 2001 by Anne Holmberg

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