CAROLINE AND THE RAIDER

by Linda Lael Miller

  When she’d finished, she fully expected the marshal to release her, but he didn’t. He just shook his head and said, “Somebody ought to take you over their knee and whack some sense into you.”

  With that, he was gone, leaving Caroline to stare after him, incensed and helpless. She was alone with a cot and thunder mug for her only comforts and, just beyond the window, a whimpering dog for her one friend.

  She sat down on the cot and buried her face in both hands. Even Kathleen had probably never stooped so low as to end up incarcerated, she thought miserably. How disappointed Emma and Lily would be if they saw her now.

  Guthrie was camped well outside of Laramie when Tob bounded out of the darkness to nuzzle him and whine.

  “Finally came to your senses, did you?” Guthrie asked, ruffling the dog’s loose yellow hide. He’d been feeling lonely, and the animal’s presence helped a little.

  Tob drank the water Guthrie poured into a bowl for him, and ate the leftover grouse meat he gave him, then started nipping at his master’s shirt sleeve and pulling.

  Guthrie was sitting on the ground, his saddle supporting the small of his back, and he folded his arms stubbornly and gazed into the fire. “She’s gone and gotten herself in trouble, has she?” he asked.

  The dog practically wept, he was so anxious, and Guthrie felt his teeth through the material of his shirt.

  With a sigh, Guthrie hoisted himself up from the ground, kicked dirt over the fire, and began saddling his horse. He didn’t give two hoots and a holler for Miss Caroline Chalmers, he told himself, but he couldn’t stand to see a dog suffer.

  Fifteen minutes later, he’d broken camp completely and was on his way back to Laramie, while Tob bounded tirelessly ahead of him. He wondered what that two-timing canine saw in the Wildcat, anyhow. In all his born days he’d never known a woman more in need of masculine guidance.

  Guidance, hell, he thought, turning his head to spit. She needed a good talking to for starters, and then a few strenuous hours in a man’s bed, so she’d know who was boss.

  After a couple of hours, he saw the roofs and walls of Laramie standing like shadows in the moonlight. He spurred his tired horse into a slightly faster pace, unable to hold his real fears at a distance any longer.

  Deep in the privacy of his heart, he offered his first prayer since Annie’s funeral, when he’d essentially told God, “You go Your way, and I’ll go mine.” I know You like to do most things after Your own fashion, Lord, but You’ve got to admit I don’t trouble You with my concerns very often. And I figure, after taking Annie like that, You owe me one. So here it is, God: keep Caroline safe. Please keep Caroline safe.

  Marshal John Stone’s pretty little wife, Amy, had come by at suppertime to bring Caroline clean sheets and blankets, and Charlie had grudgingly fetched her a chicken dinner from the dining hall down the street. And the pastor from the Presbyterian Church had stopped in to warn her that the fires of hell were licking at her heels.

  All in all, she thought dismally, lying there on her cot, with the moonlight and the chill of a spring night flowing in through the barred window, it had not been a productive day.

  She sighed, pulling the blankets up to her chin, and a sniffle escaped her. She’d been all kinds of a fool, first giving herself to a drifter who intended to marry another and made no bones about the fact, then releasing a dangerous killer from jail. If Mr. Flynn murdered someone else, it would be at least partly her fault.

  A tear welled up and trickled over Caroline’s temple and into her hair. In both cases, she’d had the most noble of designs, which only went to prove that the road to hell really was paved with good intentions, just like Miss Phoebe had always said. Miss Ethel had steadfastly refused to use the word “hell” at all, even in a theological context.

  Beyond the wall that separated the cells from the marshal’s office a clatter arose, and Caroline lay rigid in that narrow, hard cot, terrified that Seaton Flynn had come back to collect her. She’d been wrong about so many things, but she knew for sure and for certain that Mr. Flynn’s threats were not idle ones.

  However, when the outer door slammed against the inside wall, and Caroline sat bolt upright on the cot, it was Guthrie’s shape she saw in the glow of the marshal’s lantern.

  Caroline needed a rescuer, but in Guthrie Hayes she saw an avenging angel. She gulped and clutched the edge of the cot with both hands, almost glad of the bars that separated them.

  “Guthrie,” she said, with a polite little nod.

  In the moonlight streaming in from the window, Caroline saw his clenched jawline and narrowed eyes. “Do you realize that bastard could have killed you?” he breathed. “Or taken you with him?”

  Caroline trembled at the reminder, then offered up a brave smile. “But he didn’t.”

  The marshal remained behind Guthrie, listening and watching, holding the lantern high. He clearly didn’t trust visitors, and after the events of recent hours, Caroline didn’t blame him.

  She bit down on her lower lip. “G-Guthrie, you’ve got to bail me out. I can’t stay here.”

  “Bail you out? Woman, this is the safest place you could be, at least until we find Flynn. Besides, if you were out right now, I’d probably throttle you like a supper chicken!”

  Caroline’s cheeks flamed at the insult. “There is no need to be coarse,” she said indignantly.

  “I’ll be back in the morning,” Guthrie told her in a weary voice, and when he turned to go, Caroline flew off the cot to grip the bars.

  “Guthrie, please don’t go!” she cried. “You can’t leave me here!”

  His back was rigid and, for a moment, Caroline truly thought he was just going to walk out without speaking to her again. Instead, he glanced back at her over his shoulder. “Like I said, Wildcat, until we find your Mr. Flynn, I wouldn’t want you anyplace else. Besides, a few days in here might give you some time to meditate on the error of your ways.”

  With that, he went out, the marshal behind him.

  “Guthrie!” Caroline screamed, clutching the bars.

  Outside the window, Tob whimpered sympathetically.

  “Guthrie!” Caroline yelled again.

  The door opened, but it was Marshal Stone who appeared in the chasm. “My policy is to douse a pesky prisoner with cold water,” he announced. “So I’d advise you, Mrs. Hayes, to shut up.”

  Caroline swallowed a shout of outrage and whirled away from the bars to hurl herself down onto the cot. Covering her head with the pillow, she sobbed, as much from fury as from hurt, until she had no strength left.

  Then, at last, she slept.

  In the outer office, Guthrie reclaimed the pistol and gunbelt the marshal had demanded he leave on the desk.

  “She really your wife?” Stone inquired, looking horrified that any man would consider claiming such a spitfire as Caroline.

  Guthrie chuckled, recalling how Caroline carried on when he made love to her. “She’s my woman,” he replied, well aware that the words constituted a non-answer.

  Stone sank into his creaky chair and scratched the back of his head. He had a posse out looking for Flynn, but both the marshal and Guthrie knew the men probably wouldn’t have any luck. Finding the outlaw would take a man with a certain quiet affection for the sport. “Woman like that would keep a man mighty busy,” he said.

  Guthrie nodded. “You’re right there, Mr. Stone,” he agreed with a philosophical sigh. “If I bring Flynn back, will you let her go?”

  The marshal sat back in his chair, frowning as he pondered the idea. “I could have her thrown into a federal prison, you know. In fact, though I haven’t mentioned it to her, she could even hang for what she did.”

  “I didn’t ask what you could do to her, Marshal,” Guthrie said evenly, bracing his hands against the edge of the desk and leaning in a little. “Caroline isn’t an outlaw, and she doesn’t belong in prison. She honestly thought that son of a bitch had been accused of a crime he didn’t commit. She believed she loved him.�
�

  Stone looked up at him in surprise. “Your wife believed she loved another man?”

  Guthrie didn’t react to the unaccountable pain the words caused him. At least, not visibly. “I’ll straighten her out when I get her away from this place,” he replied.

  The marshal smiled approvingly. “These women,” he marveled. “Give ‘em the vote, and they think they can do anything they want to. I honestly don’t know where it’s going to end.”

  “They’re out of hand, all right,” Guthrie agreed. “But personally I think it’s too late to do much about it.” With that, he nodded a farewell and left the jailhouse.

  After settling his horse at one of the livery stables, he rented a room in a hotel and had himself a cigar and a bath. He considered sending for a woman, then decided he was too tired. Besides, he probably wouldn’t get his money’s worth because he’d be worrying about Caroline the whole time.

  Damn that little hellcat. If she wasn’t lousing up his life one way, she was lousing it up another. At the rate she was going, he wouldn’t be able to stand the sight of her in another day or two.

  He frowned, settling back in the hot, clean water he’d paid a premium price for. He might stop liking her in the space of a week or so, but a month of blue moons would probably go by before he stopped wanting her.

  There was a soft hiss as cigar ashes fell into Guthrie’s bathwater. The solution to his dilemma was simple, and he didn’t know why he kept forgetting it. All he had to do was marry Adabelle.

  Five minutes into the honeymoon, that troublemaking schoolmarm would be forced out of his mind forever. With a contented sigh, Guthrie turned his thoughts to his wedding night. Trouble was, it was Caroline who appeared in his mind’s eye, Caroline who made his manhood jut out of the water like a flag pole.

  Cursing, Guthrie clamped his cigar between his teeth and began to wash with angry sudsings and splashings. A man couldn’t even take a bath without that woman deviling him.

  * * *

  When Caroline awakened the next morning, she was shocked to realize she’d been asleep. She’d never expected to close her eyes in that awful place, let alone get any rest.

  Amy Stone brought her a pitcher of hot water, along with a metal basin and a clean bar of soap first thing, promising to stand guard at the door while Caroline performed her ablutions.

  She was feeling almost human by the time her breakfast was brought in, and her spirits were rising steadily. Guthrie had had the whole night to think, and by now he surely realized he couldn’t leave a decent woman in jail.

  When he arrived, she smiled at him, patted her tangled hair self-consciously, and then tucked her shirt into her trousers. “I knew you’d come to your senses,” she said.

  The expression on his face dashed all her hopes. “My mind’s made up, Caroline,” he said flatly. “Fm going to find Flynn and bring him back. Then Fm going to marry Adabelle. And you’re going to wait right here in this cell the whole time, so I know you can’t make any more trouble.”

  Chapter

  Caroline was careful of her behavior in the days to come and, because she seemed so contrite over her crime, the marshal finally agreed to let her take her meals and a biweekly bath at Miss Lillian Springer’s Boardinghouse, just down the street. The hated chamber pot became a thing of the past after a week, when Charlie began marching her to the privy out back of the jail.

  It was on her third visit to this place of horrific smells that Caroline saw her avenue of escape, a cobwebby gap between the back wall of the toilet and its ramshackle roof that was just big enough for her to squeeze through. She quietly returned to her cell with Charlie, her eyes lowered, her mind traveling as fast as a runaway wagon on a buttered slope.

  Caroline hadn’t heard a word from Guthrie Hayes in a full week. While she would have liked to believe he was out hunting down Mr. Flynn, it seemed far more likely that her erstwhile rescuer had married his prized Adabelle and was lost in the sweet spheres of wedded bliss.

  Locked in her jail cell again, Caroline sat down on the cot and sighed. There was no one to vindicate her; she would have to do that herself. In order to right the wrong she had done with such pure intentions, she must find Seaton Flynn personally, and somehow bring him to justice.

  She balanced her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands. The task looked impossible from where she sat, and yet she had to undertake it. She couldn’t let her life and freedom depend on Mr. Hayes, who might never come back.

  Because of Amy Stone’s good-natured lobbying, Caroline had finally been allowed to keep her extra clothes in the cell with her. She put her one calico dress on over her denim trousers and shirt and, when Charlie took her to Miss Springer’s for supper, she picked at her food even though the landlady had prepared meat loaf, one of her favorites.

  On the way back to the jailhouse, looking as peaked as she could manage, she asked Charlie to make a stop at the privy and went in, purposely catching her skirts in the door so that a good part of them would be visible from outside. Then, as swiftly and quietly as she could, Caroline squirmed out of the dress, stepped up onto the bench, being careful to avoid stepping in the hole, and climbed through the opening under the roof.

  She was covered in spider webs when she landed in the soft, grassy dirt behind the privy, and she flailed at them as she ran for her freedom. When Tob came loping after her, barking joyfully, she thought all was lost, but poor old Charlie was apparently fooled by the scrap of cloth caught in the door, for he didn’t pursue her.

  Of course, time was still crucial; Caroline knew if she didn’t ride out of Laramie within the next few minutes, the marshal would apprehend her. If that happened, she wouldn’t get another chance to escape—nor would there be any more baths or boardinghouse meals.

  Stealing her own horse proved easy, since the livery stable attendant was nowhere around. Caroline found the mare, saddled it as she had seen Guthrie do, and rode out of the large barn at a sedate pace. It wasn’t until she reached the edge of town that she spurred the little mare into a dead run.

  Jubilation filled her as she raced toward the mountain range that lay between Laramie and Cheyenne, with Tob bounding along ahead.

  Because she had read her share of dime novels, Caroline knew enough to keep to the forest itself and avoid the trails, where the marshal and his men would look for her. She hoped it wouldn’t take long to find Seaton and overcome him, because she had no food and no blankets, and she surely wouldn’t last long in the wilderness on her own.

  Caroline rode along behind Tob all that night, afraid to stop, the sound of her horse’s hooves muffled by the deep carpet of pine needles on the forest floor. By morning, she was frightened, cold, and ravenously hungry, and she still hadn’t come up with a plan for capturing Mr. Flynn. After all, he was twice her weight, and much taller, and she didn’t even have a gun.

  She was beginning to think she’d made another error in judgment by escaping when the sound of a pistol shot shattered the early morning peace and sent the birds flapping and squawking into the skies.

  With her heart wedged into her throat, Caroline got off her horse and led it behind her as she crept through the woods, trying to follow the sound. The elevation was high, and the wind was bitingly cold. Through the fragrant branches of the fir trees, she could hear the rushing sound of a spring or a creek.

  Rounding a rock ledge, she instinctively put out a hand to touch Tob’s muzzle, instructing him to be silent. Below, on the slippery brown rocks beside a misty waterfall, Guthrie stood facing Seaton, his .45 trained on the outlaw’s chest. Seaton’s pistol lay on the ground several feet away.

  Caroline was so delighted to see justice prevail that she threw up both hands and gave a shout. “Christopher Columbus!” she shouted, echoing her favorite literary character, Jo March of Little Women, in her exuberance. “I call that splendid!”

  Unfortunately, Guthrie glanced in her direction, obviously stunned by her appearance, and in the next instant Seaton spran
g at him. There was a struggle, while Caroline abandoned her horse and went scrambling down a rocky hillside with Tob, and then Seaton somehow knocked Outline’s pistol into the grass and found his own. Using the butt, he struck Guthrie on the side of the head and sent him crumbling to the ground.

  Caroline was practically choking on horror and outrage, and her mind was frozen. Her body, however, seemed to be operating under an entirely different directive. She lunged for Guthrie’s fallen pistol and, kneeling there in the wet grass and pine needles, trained it on Seaton.

  Mr. Hayes was moaning on the ground, only half conscious, his mouth bleeding.

  The scene was frighteningly similar to their last encounter, when Seaton had been ready to shoot Charlie, only now it was Guthrie who lay helpless in his sights. There was one other important difference this time, though; Caroline had a gun, too.

  “Fire that pistol, Seaton Flynn, and you’ll pay with your life,” she said evenly, and she meant every word as devoutly as any prayer she’d ever said.

  He glared down at her, slowly lowering the pistol to his side. Then, in the space of a second or two, his face underwent a change that was terrifying purely because of its simple incongruity. Seaton smiled. “Come with me, Caroline,” he pleaded reasonably, holding out his empty hand to her. “I have plenty of money. We’ll live like royalty in Mexico or South America …”

  Guthrie’s heavy .45 trembled in Caroline’s hands, but she kept it aimed squarely at Seaton’s breastbone. “You have to go back to Laramie,” she said, as though he hadn’t spoken. “You’ve got to pay for what you did.”

  Seaton laughed as though she’d said something uproariously funny. “And hang? Not on your life, pretty Caroline. Now, stop acting like a goose and put away that gun. You don’t have the courage to shoot me anyway.”

  Caroline bit her lower lip and closed her eyes for a moment, rising higher on her knees and stiffening her arms. When she looked again, Seaton was several feet farther away, and he was white as biscuit batter. “Stop,” she said, as Guthrie groaned fitfully beside her and tried to rise. “Put down your gun.”