by Lily Wilspur
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LILY WILSPUR
Mail Order Bride
On The Run
Dedication
To YOU, The reader.
Thank you for your support.
Thank you for your emails.
Thank you for your reviews.
Thank you for reading and joining me on this road.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Recommended Reads
Copyright
Chapter 1
“Don’t go out there, Miss!”
The man with the handle-bar moustache clamped his hand on Lou Ann Hawkin’s arm and pulled her back from the door. The other passengers crowded in the doorway of the train car, but none of them dared cross the threshold.
Small but feisty with corn silk blonde hair and flashing blue eyes, Lou Ann stared through the door at the square of daylight outside. Her new life waited for her out there with its promises and mysteries. Her new husband waited out there somewhere, too. He waited to take her home to her new home and her new family. “What’s going on?” she asked.
“There’s a gun battle going on,” the man told her. “You better stay put until it’s over.”
The other passengers alternately surged toward the door to see and drew back in fright at what they might see. In the tumult, Lou Ann got shoved and shuffled in every direction until, to her horror, she found herself at the precipice of the doorway.
Passengers bumped into her from behind, trying to hide behind her. She fought with all her strength, digging her feet into the floor and wedging her hands against the door jamb, to stop herself being thrown out of the car.
The open street of the town stretched out in front of her. On the other side of the street, Lou Ann saw the weathered grey buildings of Ogden, Utah. Big painted signs over some of the buildings announced the General Store, the Post Office, and the Barber Shop. Lou Ann looked in both directions. Far to her left, at the front of the train, a tiny house served as the train station. A wooden deck extended from the side of it toward the train.
Lou Ann couldn’t see any other people in the street. They were probably all hiding inside. An ominous silence hung over the town. Even the horses at the hitching posts stood deathly still, but their eyes stared in terror they knew not where.
What’s happening? Even after the man told her, Lou Ann couldn’t understand. A couple of female passengers sobbed behind her. Even the men stayed well back from the door. Lou Ann tried one more time to back up and take shelter with the rest of them, but the crush of bodies behind her resisted her retreat.
All of a sudden, and an even more terrible stillness gripped the scene. Neither man nor beast nor bird breathed. The waves of heat beating down on the town from the sun stopped their shimmering and froze the scene into a picture of fear. Lou Ann caught her breath, too, but she didn’t know why.
A slight movement caught her eye, and she saw a man step out into the street. He stood straight and sturdy, with his shoulders squared under his checkered shirt. His black eyes flashed under his black cowboy hat. His gun belt hung low around his hips.
He strode into the middle of the dusty street. The oppressive anxiety gripping the town didn’t faze him in the slightest. He faced the other end of the street, waiting for something.
Lou Ann followed his gaze just in time to see another man enter the street. He wore a grey hat, and white hairs turned his moustache a grizzled grey. His gun belt hung around the top of his tan canvas pants.
The older man took his place in the center of the street at the other end of the town, and the two men eyed each other down the stretch of dust. Every other living soul cowered and hid from them. Only Lou Ann watched in full view of the street, unable to flee.
At some invisible signal, the two men started walking toward each other. They stopped on either end of the General Store, right in front of Lou Ann. She opened her mouth to scream, to tell them to stop and wait until she found a better place to hide before they started…whatever they were going to start. But no sound came out. Her throat ached every time she inhaled the dry, torturous air.
The men glanced neither right nor left. Now, at closer range, Lou Ann saw the black hair under the younger man’s hat and the clean texture of the skin on his face. He was young, in spite of his height. The older man’s face showed the wrinkles and sun spots of advancing age. His upper lip quivered in a snarl of hatred, and Lou Ann saw a black gap in his mouth where one front tooth was missing.
Lou Ann froze, and at a distance, she sensed the people behind her go terribly still. They didn’t shove any more, and the women’s sobs died away to nothing. Not a horse twitched. Not a fly buzzed.
Suddenly, both men exploded into action. At the same instant, they both sprang into a crouch, their arms cocked out to their sides. Lou Ann saw them both reach for their guns at the same moment. They jerked their guns out of their belts and fired. Two identical plumes of white smoke billowed from the ends of their guns, and two identical voices answered each other from both sides of the General Store.
A silent scream echoed though her brain, but she couldn’t take her eyes off the spectacle. The incident imprinted on her consciousness and haunted her ever after. The smoke from the guns drifted across her view, imparting a dreamy haze to the fight.
The men stood stock still, and for an infinite moment, Lou Ann thought they’d missed each other completely. But then, with agonizing slowness, the older man to Lou Ann’s right wilted, crumpled, and fell. Another plume, this time of dust, rose around his mortal remains, and he lay motionless in the middle of the street.
Chapter 2
The younger man stood still and stared at the body on the ground. His gun still pointed at his adversary, and his left hand hung ready over the holster of his other gun. The whole town watched and waited to breathe.
But the older man didn’t move again. Bit by bit, the young gun fighter in the street lowered his gun and finally relaxed. His shoulders slouched, and his pistol hung from the end of his arm. Lou Ann saw a shudder ripple through his lanky frame. He sighed and cast his eyes down to the ground,
The on-lookers stirred to life. Behind Lou Ann, the other passengers pressed forward. But this time, they didn’t obstruct her efforts to stay inside the car. They streamed around her and flooded out through the door. They didn’t wait for the conductor to put his wooden step down in front of the doorway. They jumped down from the car, man and woman, in their haste to get into the street.
“He’s done it!” one woman exclaimed.
“God bless him!” a man answered.
Lou Ann hesitated. The fear of the previous moment still paralyzed her. She couldn’t understand these people and their strange behavior.
The man who held her back when she first approached the door to leave the train stopped next to her and examined her. “Everything’s all right now, Miss. You can get down.”
Lou Ann cast around, her thoughts a jumble of emotions and confusion.
“I just….”
The man turned his attention to the street. Other people emerged from the houses and buildings beyond and rushed up to the young man. People from all directions surrounded him, jostling and embracing him.
The young man stood motionless and downcast in the center of the throng, his eyes still fixed on the ground in front of him and his gun still clutched in his fist. “I’ll be jiggered!” the man next to Lou Ann murmured. “I never thought he’d do it!”
“Where’s the sheriff?” Lou Ann asked. “He’ll be arrested, I guess.”
“Him?” The man nodded toward the street. “Not likely! He’s a hero.”
“He’s a murderer!” Lou Ann exclaimed. “There’s a dead man right over there.”
The man ignored her and jumped down to join the crowd outside.
The moment he left, someone in the throng took off their hat and tossed it into the air. Another person whooped for joy, and others copied them. The scene erupted into a celebration of cheering. Children capered about and two men danced around in a circle with their elbows locked together. Women wiped the tears from their cheeks and reached out to touch the young gun fighter’s sleeve.
Lou Ann couldn’t believe her eyes. Two men—one wore a blacksmith’s apron and the other a grocer’s smock—picked the young man up and paraded through the streets of the town with him on their shoulders. As far as Lou Ann could see, people waved and cheered and sang and rejoiced. No one paid the slightest attention to the dead body just a few paces away.
The conductor didn’t come with his step and the porter didn’t come to help her with her bags. Lou Ann waited a few more minutes, but then the whistle sounded from the front of the train.
She jumped down from the door and landed in the dust. She didn’t know what to do or where to go next. Everyone who usually tended passengers at the train station seemed to be on a holiday in front of the General Store. In fact, the whole town seemed to be on a holiday.
She took a few more steps. The blast of steam from the engine signaled the train getting ready to leave. She could only hope someone had unloaded her luggage from the baggage car.
The parade of townspeople moved off in the direction of the church, following the young man on the shoulders of his admirers. Lou Ann didn’t want to be seen to join their festivities, so she waited until they left before she crossed the street to the General Store.
Lou Ann glanced this way and that for someone to ask about what she ought to do, but she didn’t see anyone. At loose ends, she walked back and forth in front of the General Store to the Post Office, then back again the other way. She passed the Barber Shop and stopped again. A liver-colored dog loped past her, following the crowd.
Lou Ann gave up all hope of figuring out what to do, but just then, her eye fell on the lifeless lump in the middle of the street. The first fly sailed around over it, looking for a place to land and set up shop. Someone had to do something about this. She lifted up her skirts again and stepped down into the street. She went back toward the train station.
At the other end of the street, on the opposite end of town from the church, stood the courthouse with an impressive belfry on top of it. The jail, identifiable by the bars in its windows, occupied a dumpy building next door to the courthouse.
Lou Ann bustled up to the door of the jail and peered inside.
A fat-bellied, middle-aged man sat behind a desk, writing in a ledger. If she hadn’t seen the metal star pinned to his shirt, Lou Ann never would have believed this indolent man was the town sheriff.
Chapter 3
His damp eyes rose to meet her when she appeared. “Mornin’, Miss,” he greeted her. “Welcome to town. What can I do for you?”
“It’s not what you can do for me, Sheriff,” Lou Ann told him. “I thought you might like to know there’s a murder victim lying in the middle of the street of your town. What are you going to do about that?”
“Is he dead?” the sheriff asked.
“Of course he’s dead,” Lou Ann fumed. “The other man shot him. You must have heard the shots from here.”
The sheriff pushed his hat back from his forehead and scratched the top of his head. “I’m sorry he’s dead. I didn’t think he’d be able to do it. What a shame!”
“Really, Sheriff,” Lou Ann exclaimed. “I’m surprised at you. A gun battle just took place in the main street of your town and a man was gunned down in cold blood. And you just sit here, doing nothing. Is that the way a lawman should act? I would think you have some responsibility to maintain order in this town.”
The sheriff sighed. “Lady, you’re new here. I guess you just got off the train, so you don’t know how things work in this town. But since you bring it up, I’ll explain it to you. You’re right that my job is to maintain order in this town, and that means that I know when to keep my head up and when to keep my head down. That’s my job.”
“So you just sit here and let people shoot out their differences in the street?” Lou Ann asked. “Anyone could have been hit by a stray bullet in that gun fight. You’re supposed to be safe-guarding the public safety.”
“That’s what I’ve been doing.” The sheriff stood up. “I guess we better go get him. His family will want to bury him.”
“Does he have family in town?” Lou Ann asked. “I supposed he has children and grandchildren and nieces and nephews. A man his age ought to have a pretty big family.”
The sheriff stopped and stared at her. “Grandchildren?”
“Sure,” Lou Ann declared. “He’s old enough.”
The sheriff paused another moment. Then, he smiled. “Well, if that don’t beat all! He did it!”
“Did what?” Lou Ann asked.
“The young fella,” the sheriff replied. “He did it!”
“Of course he did it,” Lou Ann returned. “He killed the old man.”
The sheriff stared at her, dumbfounded. Then he let out a yell and burst out laughing. He slapped his fat thigh with his meaty hand. “Hot diggity! He did it! I’ll be whooped.”
Lou Ann frowned. “What are you talking about? Has everyone in this town taken leave of their senses? He killed the old man, and everyone is out there carrying him around on their shoulders like he just saved the town from the plague.”
The sheriff smiled at her. “In a way, he did.”
“What do you mean?” Lou Ann asked.
“You don’t understand,” the sheriff replied. “You’re not from around here.”
“You’re right,” Lou Ann agreed. “I don’t understand. I don’t understand how a man can be lying dead in the middle of the street and the whole town congratulating his murderer and worshiping him as a hero.”
The sheriff set his hat back on his head and sniffed. “Listen to me, young lady. The old man had it comin’, and that’s putting it mildly. That dead man out there—I’m assuming you’re telling me the truth about this—that old man was Earnest Shipler. He was a notorious outlaw around this area, and he terrorized everyone to death for forty years. He robbed the stores, he burned the mail coaches, he stole women and left them dead and mutilated in the ditches, and he killed anyone, man, woman, or child, who even spoke against him.”
Lou Ann gaped at him. “He did?”
“Yes, he did,” the sheriff told her. “The people of this town have been praying for someone to come along and get rid of Shipler, but no one wanted to take their life in their hands by standing up to him. He was the most deadly gun fighter in five states. He killed more than a hundred men who tried to go after him. Now he’s dead! Hallelujah!”
“But that other one,” Lou Ann waved toward the door. “the man who killed him, he’s just young. He doesn’t look more than twenty years old. How could he stand up to a devil like Shipler?”
“He’s been away for years,” the sheriff told her. “He just moved back to work on his father’s farm.”
“But you still haven’t told me what you plan to do with Shipler’s body,” Lou Ann pointed out. “He’s lying out
there in the blazing sun, and no one seems at all concerned about it.”
The sheriff scratched his head again. “I guess I better do something about it.”
“What are you going to do?” Lou Ann asked.
The sheriff shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I’ll just dump it outside town somewhere. It doesn’t matter where.”
“You can’t do that!” Lou Ann cried. “You have to give him a decent burial. It doesn’t matter how much of a villain he was. He was a human being. You have to bury him.”
“I don’t have to do anything,” the sheriff shot back. “There isn’t a living soul for a hundred miles in any direction who cares about what happens to Earnest Shipler’s body. He’s got no family, and the bandits he used to run with are all wanted by the law in every state in the territory. I don’t have to do anything about getting rid of his body, as I’m not his family. It’s only, like you say, on account of my job that I’d take the time to load his carcass onto a wagon and haul it out of town. That, and to avoid him stinking up the place.”
Chapter 4
Lou Ann pursed her lips. “Honestly, Sheriff, I didn’t think it was possible for a public official like you to be so unkind. Show a little compassion. The man’s dead.”
“He’s dead and good riddance to bad rubbish!” the sheriff spat. He hitched his gun belt up around his nonexistent hips. “I’ll just step over to the smithy and get the wagon . Then I’ll get rid of Shipler.”
The sheriff walked out of the jail without another word to Lou Ann. Only after he left did she remember that she meant to ask him where she could get herself checked into a hotel.
She went out into the street and, to her relief, she saw the townspeople drifting back into town. She didn’t see the young hero. She meandered over to the General Store and glanced in. The storekeeper stood behind the counter, serving customers as though nothing had happened. If she hadn’t seen the gun battle herself, and if the body of the victim wasn’t still lying in the middle of the street, she could almost believe she’d imagined the whole thing.