"Call it what you want," Briggs said, his mouth twisted in contempt. "Owen was a fine man. He was also a husband and father," Briggs said. "Thanks to that. . . that woman, my sister is a widow and his children orphans."
Justin chose his words carefully. He didn't want to say anything that could be used against Sarah. "Miss Prescott hasn't been charged with Owen's death."
"More's the pity." Briggs picked up a paper from his desk and waved it. "This here is a proclamation signed by the Honorable Judge Fassbender himself, ordering Sarah Prescott to hang for the death of a Wells Fargo passenger during the course of a robbery. I'll just have to be satisfied with hanging her once."
"What if I prove that Miss Prescott was wrongly accused?"
"You're beginning to sound more like one of those fancy Boston lawyers than a preacher."
Ignoring the mockery in the marshal's voice, Justin persisted, "She's guilty of no crime."
"She's a Prescott. Around these parts, that's crime enough."
"The real crime is hanging a woman without a fair trial."
"She had a trial, Reverend. When I took the oath of office, I vowed to uphold law and order. I have the full support and approval of the folks in this town."
"The full support, huh? Well, I guess we can't argue with popular opinion, can we?"
Justin stood and walked casually toward the door. His hand on the tarnished brass doorknob, he looked over his shoulder and regarded the marshal thoughtfully.
"One more thing, Marshal. I'll be bringing Miss Prescott's . . ." He hesitated and cleared his throat. "Her daughter to see her later today." It wasn't exactly a lie as Sarah was, in fact, Elizabeth's godmother. More than that, she was the only mother Elizabeth had.
Briggs sat back in surprise. "Miss Prescott has a daughter?" he sputtered.
"Her name's Elizabeth. She's still a baby. It sure is going to be tough on her, growing up without a mother."
The lawman rubbed his chin. It was obvious from his dark expression that this was not welcome news. "I didn't know she was . . ." He caught himself. "That's not my problem."
"Maybe. Maybe not," Justin drawled. "Of course when word gets out that you're stringing up an infant's mother, the folks around here might take issue with the way you carry out justice. You just never know, do you? The public can be so fickle at times. Especially during an election year."
Justin glanced at the Vote for Briggs for County Sheriff sign in the window. Similar signs were plastered all around town. Briggs had his eye on bigger and better things, but according to Ma, he was fast losing ground to his opponent. Briggs obviously counted on a Prescott hanging to turn the tide in his favor.
Justin placed his hat on his head and opened the door. "Good day, Marshal."
Twenty-seven
Ma had just finished feeding Elizabeth when Justin returned to the boardinghouse.
"She's a little angel," she declared, shifting the sleeping baby onto her shoulder and patting her on the back.
Justin ran a knuckle along the baby's cheek. "That she is." He turned a chair around, straddled it, and folded his arms on top of the ladder back.
"Do you know anything about the county sheriff? I believe his name is Bockoven."
Ma heaved a sigh. "At one time, he was the best. He helped us through all that terrible Indian trouble." Ma told him about Rocky Creek's Indian war and how her husband had been killed while defending the town against a raid. The Comanches were finally moved to a reservation in Indian territory, thus effectively ending their Indian troubles and making the fort outside of town obsolete.
"The sheriff took an arrow to the back during that raid. He recovered, but he was never the same and got worse over time. It's like the arrow poison kept eating away at his brain or something. They tried to hide it, but old man Thompkins rode out to see him recently. Though he and the sheriff have been friends for years, the sheriff didn't even know who he was."
"That's too bad," Justin said. Abandoning any hope of getting Bockoven to intervene on Sarah's behalf, he decided to put his second plan into action. "Tell me, if I wanted the whole town to know something important, how would I go about spreading the word?"
Ma lay Elizabeth in her tiny crate before answering. "If you want it spread accurately, you could tell the Society for the Prevention of People Being Buried Alive."
"Is that still a problem?" he asked, surprised. Boston's medical community had come a long way in preventing such tragedies.
"Not so much anymore. Doc Myers is up on all the latest medical advancements. If he declares you're dead, you better believe that you are." She hesitated a moment. "Speaking of the doctor, it might not be a bad idea to take the baby to see him. He has this instrument that can administer smallpox vaccinations with hardly any pain."
He hadn't thought about taking Elizabeth to a doctor and he felt a surge of guilt. "Yes, that's a good idea. I'll take her." Anxious to get back to the original topic, he leaned forward. "I'm not so much interested in accuracy as I am in speed. Who would I go to if I wanted news spread fast?"
Ma's yellow-toothed grin looked like ripe corn. "In that case, Reverend, you tell the ladies of the Rocky Creek Quilting Bee."
"The quilting bee, eh?" He sat back and smiled to himself. Well, what do you know? Texas wasn't all that different from Boston, after all.
The ladies of the Rocky Creek Quilting Bee met in the widow Mrs. Taylor's home two afternoons a week and just happened to be meeting that very next day. According to Ma, no marriage, birth, or death was considered official until a quilt marking the occasion was made and presented to the family with great fanfare by the group's leader.
Following Ma's directions, he found Mrs. Taylor's clapboard house and knocked on the widow's door. The door flew open on its own, but the ladies inside were too busy chatting to hear his knocks.
He stepped into the cool parlor that opened to a dining room. The quilters sat around a long, narrow table covered with colorful fabric scraps.
No one noticed Justin standing in the doorway, Elizabeth in his arms. She was dressed for the occasion in a pretty blue frock that Ma had whipped up on her hand-cranked sewing machine.
Justin waited politely for an opening in the conversation to introduce himself. But the longer he stood, the more he feared he would never get a word in edgewise.
Their nimble fingers were hardly able to keep up with the latest gossip that flowed around the table like rising floodwaters.
"If you ask me," one older woman sniffed, "Sarah Prescott is getting exactly what she deserves."
A young woman who was obviously with child shook her head. "It doesn't seem right to me. A woman can't vote, but she can be strung up like some common horse thief just because she's a Prescott."
"It's not just because she's a Prescott," another quilter argued. "She and her brothers shot that passenger in cold blood. The marshal says she's also responsible for Marshal Owen's death."
A woman with a sharp, pointed nose rose to her feet. "If that's true, she deserves her fate!"
Everyone talked at once until a matronly woman wearing a big feathered hat spotted Justin. She clapped her hands together until the room grew silent, then turned to him. "May we help, help you?"
Justin introduced himself. "I'm Reverend Wells, the new pastor of the church, and this is Elizabeth."
The woman who appeared to be the leader of the group rose and swept toward him, apologizing profusely. "Oh, yes, yes, I heard you arrived. It's about time Rocky Creek had a pastor of its own." While most of the other women wore unadorned bonnets, the leader's outlandish hat looked like a flock of birds about to take flight.
"Welcome to Rocky Creek. Rocky Creek. I'm Mrs. Hitchcock." Quickly, she introduced him to each woman in the room, repeating everyone's name twice.
Justin smiled politely at each woman in turn. Altogether there were eight of them. Some gave him full attention, others merely lifted their eyes momentarily before returning to their stitchery.
The last woman she introduced was Mrs. M
addie Thomson. "This is our soon-to-be mother."
Maddie snipped a piece of thread with her scissors. "Really, Marcy. You've embarrassed Reverend Wells."
Justin smiled at her. "I look forward to baptizing your little one," he said, then added, "I was hoping to see you ladies at church on Sunday."
The women exchanged guilty looks.
"Oh dear, oh dear," Mrs. Hitchcock exclaimed. "We're just so out of practice. God knows how long it's been since we've had a pastor."
The woman who had been introduced as Mrs. Cranston stabbed her needle into one of the fabric squares. "We recently moved here and didn't know what the rules were for attending church."
"Rules?" Justin asked.
"The church back in Austin required that you be Republican to attend," she explained.
Justin knew about racial discrimination in churches, but this was the first he'd heard of political bigotry. "Everyone is welcome to attend our church," he assured her.
"Really?" Mrs. Cranston sounded dubious. "How democratic."
"I planned to go," the woman who had been introduced as Mrs. Emma Fields announced with a conciliatory air. She was a birdlike woman who wore her brown hair in a nest-like bun on top of her head. "But this old hip of mine was aching something fierce. I figure there would be plenty of time to hear your sermon."
"Just so you know, I preach a different sermon every week," he said.
Several women's eyebrows shot up.
"A different one.Really?" Maddie said.
"What a quaint idea," Mrs. Fields exclaimed.
Mrs. Hitchcock walked over to him, her ample hips swaying like a boat on high seas. She stuck her face in Elizabeth's and made an odd little cooing sound. Elizabeth stared at her with big round eyes.
"I had no idea you were a family man. A family man," Mrs. Hitchcock said.
"Actually, I'm not," he explained. "The baby's father was killed during an Indian attack."
"How awful," Mrs. Fields exclaimed and all the women nodded in solemn agreement.
"I'm taking care of baby Elizabeth here for her mother," he said. "Perhaps you've heard of her?"
He cast a casual glance around the room, meeting the curious gaze of each woman in turn. "Her name is Sarah Prescott."
A stunned silence followed his announcement. Mouths dropped open, eyes rounded, needles froze in midair.
Mrs. Hitchcock was the first to break the strained silence. "Oh, that poor, poor baby. Poor baby," she gasped, hands on her ample bosom.
The expectant mother rubbed her belly and exclaimed. "That sweet child's mother doesn't deserve to die." She glanced at each woman in turn. "I don't care what any of you say."
"I couldn't agree more," Justin said. "Especially since she tried to save the marshal's life." He then explained how Sarah had removed Marshal Owen's bullet with her skillful surgery.
Miss Monica Freeman waved her quilting needle. "If you ask me, this whole debacle is a miscarriage of justice. The woman was condemned even before that farce of a trial."
Mrs. Hitchcock leaned over and whispered in his ear. "Miss Freeman is the schoolteacher, schoolteacher." As if the woman needed further endorsement, she added, "And she reads books, books." Her eyes rounded. "Thick, thick books."
Everyone started to talk at once. Two of the ladies maintained that Sarah deserved her fate but changed their minds when Elizabeth broke into a broad smile.
"She's as sweet as a gumdrop," Mrs. Hitchcock purred.
Mrs. Fields nodded. "One look at that face, and you just know she's from good stock."
The schoolteacher frowned. "That's ridiculous. You can't tell that by looking at a baby's face."
"I can!" Mrs. Fields said heatedly.
"So can I," Maddie Thomson added, hand on her swollen belly.
After much discussion, the members of the Rocky Creek Quilting Bee decided two things: Elizabeth's mother didn't deserve to die, and Sarah Prescott's dear, sweet baby would be the recipient of the next quilt.
Satisfied, Justin thanked the ladies and took his leave. He walked down the flower-lined path and parked himself next to the gate. It was near Elizabeth's feeding time and she began to fuss. He jostled her, hoping he wouldn't have to wait long.
He didn't. Almost at once, the front door flew open and the exodus began.
The ladies of the Rocky Creek Quilting Bee apparently hadn't even bothered to wait for their president to declare the meeting over before making a mad dash for the door. He could hear Mrs. Hitchcock's objections from inside the house. "Ladies, ladies . . . Come back, come back!"
It was only by pure luck that Justin wasn't knocked off his feet in the mad rush that followed. The women apologized profusely for nearly barreling over him, made clucking sounds at Elizabeth, then scattered in different directions like hens trying to outrun a hatchet-wielding farmer.
They spread the news so fast following Justin's startling announcement that he barely had time to return to the boardinghouse to feed Elizabeth before he noted a number of carriages and buggies barreling past the house.
Arriving in town on horseback with Elizabeth slung against his chest, he smiled in satisfaction at the group of outraged citizens gathered outside the marshal's office to protest the hanging of baby Elizabeth's mother.
Tethering his horse on a hitching post, he leaned against a post in front of Fairbanks General Merchandise and watched, one hand cradling the baby's weight. Women of all shapes and sizes packed the street, carrying hastily made signs protesting Sarah's fate.
Things got so loud that Briggs was finally forced to step outside his office to control the crowd. Holding his palms outward, he pleaded with the women. "Now calm down. All of you."
Mrs. Hitchcock stepped forward. "We'll calm down, calm down, when you let that baby's mother go," she said, repeating herself twice more for good measure.
Marshal Briggs' face grew a worrisome shade of red, but he nonetheless appeared to waver until a starched woman dressed in black walked up to him. An uneasy silence settled over the crowd. Even so, Justin had to strain his ears to hear the woman's soft voice.
"Do I need to remind you all that my husband is dead because of that. . . that woman?" she asked. "My children are without a father. What kind of brother are you to deny me justice?"
Justin was surprised to see her there. He didn't know Owen's widow had returned from her trip. He felt remiss for failing to pay his respects and fulfill his promise to Owen. Listening to her continue to rant, his heart sank. He hadn't counted on Owen's sister making a plea on her husband's behalf. Poor woman. She was so distraught. Who could blame her?
Briggs glanced at his widowed sister, then at the crowd. If Justin guessed right, the marshal's thoughts were on the upcoming election and his chances of becoming sheriff. He was caught between a rock and a hard place, and he knew it. Justin knew it. His brother's widow wanted one thing; the town, another.
Justin pressed his lips against Elizabeth's head. "So what do you think, little one? Will he choose the election or family?" Women, of course, didn't have a vote, but they did influence the men in their lives. A man seeking office would be foolish to discount popular female opinion.
Justin didn't have to wait long for his answer.
Briggs raised his voice to address the crowd. "Bring me Miss Prescott's outlaw brothers, and she's free to go."
Justin was caught by surprise. Since the sheriff was out of the picture, the most he expected was to force Briggs to talk to the judge. What kind of place was this that a mere town marshal had the power to decide a prisoner's fate?
The crowd cheered, but Owen's widow stomped away angrily.
The marshal's gaze followed her all the way to her horse and buggy before he turned his attention back to the town's womenfolk. "You've got three days." Briggs turned away from the crowd.
Justin followed the marshal into his office, slamming the door shut behind him.
The marshal spun around to face Justin, his eyes flashing with impatience. "What do you want?"<
br />
"I can't find her brothers in three days," Justin said, anger creeping into his voice.
"What do you want me to do about it?"
"Talk to the judge. Demand another trial." Justin's gaze held the marshal's.
The marshal made a face. "It'll take longer than three days to sober him up."
"Then give me ten days," Justin said, though he had no idea if he could find her brothers in even that length of time.
Briggs practically sputtered. "Do you have any idea how much trouble that woman has caused? It ain't proper to jail men and women together. I had to release thirteen prisoners to make room for her. I've got killers and thieves walkin' around town just so I could put one woman in jail."
"Eight days," Justin persisted, and to sweeten the deal, he added, "Three Prescotts for one."
He could see the wheels turning in the marshal's head.
Hanging a woman would give him notoriety, but capturing her three brothers would win the election.
"Five, and that's my last offer. Now get so I can work."
Justin's mind worked furiously. "Not until I see the prisoner."
The marshal narrowed his eyes. "Again?"
"You wouldn't deny a mother a chance to see her baby, now would you?"
Briggs glanced down at Elizabeth but said nothing. Instead, he stood and plucked a ring of keys from a rusty nail. Turning, he led the way to the cells in back, the keys jingling in his hand.
Twenty-eight
Fearing the commotion outside signaled a lynch party in her honor, Sarah's heart pounded and her knees trembled. The sound of a key in the lock of the outer door struck terror in her, and she backed into a corner.
When Justin walked up to her cell, she almost fainted with relief. He pulled Elizabeth out of her sling and held her up.
She rushed forward. "Oh, Justin . . . If you ain't a sight for sore eyes." Hands on her chest, she gazed at Elizabeth and tears stung her eyes. "I reckon there ain't anythin' more beautiful."
"Just like her mother," he said. She opened her mouth to protest, but before she could say a word, he added, "Her godmother."
A Lady Like Sarah Page 20