White Moon Rising

by John Foxjohn

  The man reached out pushed Andy. “I think the Injun lover is mad. Better watch it, Bubba. He might scalp ya.”

  Seething, Andy stepped forward. “I will not tell you again. Give it back.”

  Reaching for the painting, Potter said, “Let me see that, Bubba.” He grabbed one side and yanked as Bubba snatched it the other way. The well-tanned deerskin did exactly what they planned. It ripped into two pieces. Both men flung theirs to the ground.

  “I ain’t buying any torn up painting,” Bubba said, and laughed.

  Andy stared at the two pieces of the deerskin for a long moment as the men around him howled with laughter. Something burst inside him. He reached out and grabbed Bubba behind the neck with his right hand, and Potter with the left. He then tried to clap his hands as hard as he could.

  A hollow sound of the two faces colliding resounded in the night air, but the two men never heard it. Blood, teeth, and gore mashed together.

  Andy flung them at the two shadows.

  Something crashed into the back of his head, stunning him. He fell sideways against the building, but ducked the next blow of a rifle butt. He grabbed the rifle and pulled. The man didn’t let the rifle go, but he did come with it. The man’s momentum was coming forward and met Andy’s fist.

  He dropped like Andy had hit him with an anvil.

  The others must have decided another time would be better, because when Andy spun to face them, they took off.

  With his head pounding from the blow, Andy reached up and touched his head. He found a wetness that he knew was blood.

  Behind him, the unmistakable sound of someone double cocking a shotgun blasted through the night air. A harsh voice snapped, “Injun, this is Sheriff Toley. You twitch a muscle and I’ll splatter your spine all over this street. Get your hands up. You’re under arrest.”

  There was no doubt Toley meant everything he said. Andy swallowed hard. He eased his hands in the air so the sheriff wouldn’t have an excuse. “Mind telling me what for?”

  “Disturbing the peace and assault. Now move to the jail. Just give me an excuse to cut you in two.”

  A few minutes later, Andy stepped into the jail cell and the sheriff slammed the door shut. He stepped back and glared at Andy. “You’ll find out how we treat Injun loving trouble makers in my town. I’m halfway inclined to come in there and teach you a lesson myself.”

  Smiling, Andy stepped back from the bars. “Come on in, sheriff. I like learning new things.”

  Chapter Four

  Abbey entered the kitchen with the aroma of apple pie swirling about. Her mother, with flour on the front of her apron, stopped what she was doing. “Is that the dress you plan on wearing for supper?”

  “Sure. Why?” she asked with a shrug.

  “Why aren’t you wearing one of your new ones? We’re having company.”

  “Mom, you aren’t wearing one of your new ones. Why should I?”

  Her mother yanked her apron off and threw it on the table. “I swear I don’t know what gets into you. Lloyd isn’t coming to see me. He’s coming to see you.”

  “He would tell me I’m beautiful if I was wearing a tow sack, Mom.” She held up an index finger. “I bet he tells you how young you look and he wished you were ten years younger and he’d give dad a run for his money.”

  “That’s not the point, Abigail. If you wait too long you risk losing him. You need—” she stopped when someone knocked on the front door. “Too late, that’s him now. Would you at least set the table?”

  “Yes, Mother, I will.” Abbey sighed as she gathered the plates, silverware, and napkins. She didn’t know why she even tried. She was never going to make her parents understand what she wanted. They were only concerned with what they wanted.

  With her hands full, she backed up to the kitchen door and pushed it open. She was halfway into the room when she became aware of her father and Lloyd’s conversation. Before she could say anything, Lloyd’s words stopped her.

  “I went by and had a little chat with him. I made it clear he was not to come around Abbey anymore.”

  She blinked. She couldn’t believe she’d heard that right. No way could he mean he went by and talked to Andy. “What did you say?” she asked.

  Lloyd and her father turned to face her, but Lloyd who spoke. “Abbey, you look beautiful.”

  Fear and anger began to form deep inside her. Her hands trembled so much that she had to set the dishes on the table. When she had, she asked, “Forget that, what did you mean? Who did you tell not to come around me anymore?”

  “Now Abbey,” her father began.

  Without taking her eyes off her suitor, she snapped, “No, Papa, I want to her this from Lloyd.”

  He strode forward and caught both of her shoulders in his hands. “Abbey, I went and had a talk with Johansson. I told him not to come around you anymore.”

  Jerking away from him, her eyes blazing with fury, she spun to face her father. With her jaws clenched tight, her words hissed out. “Did you have anything to do with this?”

  Lloyd reached for her but she slapped his hand away. “Papa, did you have anything to do with this.”

  “Well, no, Abbey, but I think it was a good idea.”

  She spun to face Lloyd. “What right did you have to do that? I don’t belong to you. You have no right to say who can come around me or not.”

  He tried to take her shoulders again but she spun away from him. He dropped his hands. “When we are married, I will have a lot to say about it. I don’t think he is fit company for you.”

  Hands on hips, she glared at him. “I’ve missed something. When did I ever tell you I would marry you?”

  The kitchen door opened and Abbey’s mother rushed in. Although she’d heard what had gone on—with the loud voices it would have been impossible not to—she asked, “What’s going on in here?”

  Abbey didn’t bother to respond. Her glare cut into Lloyd. “You didn’t answer my question.”

  With an exasperated sigh, he said as if lecturing a wayward child, “Abigail, you haven’t said yes, yet, but we both know you will. I don’t want my fiancée keeping company with that trash. You sure won’t after we are married.”

  Her insides churned and she was reaching a boiling point. She sucked in a breath to try to calm herself, but it didn’t seem to help. She’d let this stuff with Lloyd go on too long. “You’ve asked me twice to marry you and I haven’t given you an answer. I’m ready now.”

  With a satisfied nod, her father said, “Good.”

  “Lloyd, I’ll marry you when hell freezes over and you are the last man on earth.” With that, she spun away and hurried to her room.

  The silence was deafening in the room after Abbey’s door slammed. Stunned, both men stared after her. Lucile Martin placed both hands on her hips and glared at her husband. “You better not have had anything to do with that.”

  Martin stuttered, but his words failed him. Lloyd Stephens recovered quicker than Martin. “Ma’am,” he said with his finest snake oil voice, “You need not worry about Abbey. She didn’t mean what she said. She’ll come to her senses.”

  She turned her glare on him. “That’s where you are wrong. You don’t know her as good as you seem to think. She meant every word of what she said, and no, she won’t change her mind.”

  Stephens cocked his head and smiled, “Now, Mrs. Martin, surely you don’t—”

  “But I do. You had no right to do what you did. If you ever had a chance with Abbey, and now I don’t think you did, you just killed it.”

  Without another word, she spun away from them. Her heels clicked on the floor as she crossed the room, rapped on Abbey’s door, and then entered.

  Abbey was sitting in her chair brushing her hair. She fought back tears. Her insides felt hollow. With a trembling voice, said, “If you’ve come to tell me to go apologize, you’re wasting your time.”

  The mother took the brush from her and brushed her hair like she had when Abbey was a little girl. Neither
spoke for a long time as the bristles made even strokes, stirring up the scent of soap. Finally Abbey’s mother spoke, “No, I didn’t come in for that. What Lloyd did was wrong, no two ways about it. I don’t blame you, but I don’t think your father knew about it.”

  “Would it have made a difference if he had? He’s already picked out my husband for me. So have you, for that matter.”

  Lucile Martin made several strokes before she replied. “You’re right, and I made a mistake.”

  Half turning in her seat, Abbey said, “Mom, I—”

  “Let me finish.” She took a deep breath. “Your father wasn’t my first love. Don’t get me wrong, I do love him and my world revolves around him, and now, I wouldn’t have it any other way. But when I was sixteen I fell hard for a good-looking no-account. Your father hadn’t come into the picture then. He would right after I fell for the good-looking one.”

  She stopped and stared into space for several moments. Abbey didn’t say anything. Like most children, she actually knew little about her parents’ lives. She never would have suspected this aspect from her mother.

  “My mother sat me down and explained a few things about love, men, and my responsibility to myself. It’s easy to fall for the glitter, but you then have to live with it your entire life. What happens when the shine wears off? What’s left? If there is no substance below that shine, then you eventually will be left with nothing.”

  Abbey didn’t understand what her mother was saying but waited her out as she continued to stroke her hair.

  “What I just saw in the living room is what I think you have sensed from the beginning. There’s nothing but shine with Lloyd—nothing underneath. He looks good, but it is just looks. Your father and I got so carried away with wanting you to have a decent future, we forgot there is more to a future than what appears on the outside. I forgot my mother’s advice.”

  With tears streaming down her cheeks, Abbey asked, “Have you ever regretted choosing Papa over the good-looking one?”

  She laid her head on her daughter’s golden hair. “Dear, I learned that your father was the good-looking one. I was looking at the wrong things.”

  Trembling, Abbey closed her eyes. She had to see Andy. Tell him she had nothing to do with Lloyd’s visit—tell him she didn’t think that way.

  Her mother was still brushing her hair when someone knocked on the door. Her father entered and frowned at his wife, and then turned his attention to his daughter. “You shouldn’t talk to Lloyd like that.”

  Through clenched teeth, Abbey said, “Papa, he had no right to do that. I’m also going to tell Andy I had nothing to do with it—Lloyd Stephens does not speak for me.”

  “That’s impossible,” her father said. “He’s in jail. Some kind of drunken brawl. He assaulted several men.”

  Abbey jumped out of the chair. “Andy? That’s ridiculous.”

  As she marched out, her father yelled, “Where are you going?”

  When she didn’t reply, he yelled, “Come back here, young lady.”

  The front door slamming answered him.

  Chapter Five

  Abbey’s heart pounded as she marched through the night air, her heels clicking on the boardwalk. Amid aromas of cooking meat from family suppers and the restaurant, combined with a tinge of dust, she thought only about getting Andy out of jail.

  Her situation dawned on her and she stopped. She’d rushed out of the house in anger without thinking about a plan, and her only destination was the jail—a place a decent young woman would never go. If she did, it would set the old biddies of the town to talking even more. It was almost as if she was their entertainment now, anyway.

  She stomped her foot. It wasn’t right the way the people of the town treated Andy. It just wasn’t right.

  The quiet of the night shattered with explosive laughter from the saloon. A shudder swept through her, and she reached into her dress pocket for the two-shot Derringer. She kept her hand in her pocket, but with the gun in her grasp. She didn’t believe in violence, but others did, and the gun’s cold metal comforted her. She shivered. She wasn’t sure she could ever shoot anyone.

  Moments passed before she steeled her courage, and then strode past the saloon to the jail.

  Sheriff Hiram Toley sat behind his desk, boots propped up, half-asleep. The man disgusted her. An aura of filth surrounded him like a halo. Black grime an inch wide circled his open collar competing with his long hair to see what was dirtier. His shirt had white salt rings under both arms, and his unkempt beard had tobacco stains. His belly hung over his belt like he was pregnant with twin twelve-year-olds.

  Normally the sheriff leered at her, leaving her feeling like she needed a bath. Now his mouth fell open and his boots hit the floor.

  He rushed to the front of his desk, sputtering before getting the words out. “Girlie, you can’t be in here.”

  With one hand on her hip, she tightened her grip on the Derringer with the other, her glare cutting into the sheriff. “I want Andy out of jail right now.”

  Toley crossed his arms and sat back on the edge of the desk, chuckling. “Do you, now. That ain’t about to happen. Only the judge can release him. He ain’t in town. Won’t be till the end of the month. Now take yourself outahere.”

  Abbey almost stomped her foot again as frustration overwhelmed her, but she caught herself. It wouldn’t do any good and she couldn’t let him know he had the upper hand. She glared at him. “If you don’t let him out, you are going to be sorry.”

  He waved her off like swatting a fly. “Get out of here, you little twit.”

  She spun around, her hand still on the gun, but that didn’t do her any good. She couldn’t shoot him. Didn’t even know if she could hit him, anyway.

  After slamming the door, she stood in the night not knowing what to do. Then it dawned on her. Andy had one person in the town besides her that liked him. One person who would help him.

  She hurried down the street until she came to a painted frame house with a picket fence around the yard. It was easy to find because it was the only house in Heath painted or with a fence.

  At the gate she hesitated. Good girls didn’t go unescorted to men’s homes at night, either. She sighed. They didn’t work or go into jails, either. It seemed that all good girls could do was get married to some lug whether she loved or cared about him, then proceed to be his slave while bearing his kids. Had to be something better in life than that.

  The gate creaked when she opened it, the sound loud. With her heart skittering against her ribs, she swallowed hard, and then knocked. When nothing happened, she knocked again, this time louder. The second time did the trick. Footsteps padded toward the front door. Moments later, the door opened a crack and JT Moreland, a tall, slender male with a shock of white hair atop a face seamed with age, looked out.

  He gasped when he spotted Abbey and opened the door all the way. “My goodness. Abigail. What’s the matter?” he said, concern in his voice.

  Without taking a breath and all in one sentence, she blurted out the problem. When she was through, he smiled at her, nodded, and said, “Let me get my coat.”

  Moments later, he appeared with his dress coat on. Abbey had seen him often on the street and in church, but had never seen him without being properly dressed as he called it, or needing a shave.

  They strode down the street with him taking smaller steps so she could keep up with him.

  “I take it your interest in young Andy is personal?” he asked.

  Her face burning with heat, she nodded when she couldn’t get any words out.

  “Thought so. Andy’s a fine young man, Abigail. I don’t care what the ignorant people in this town think. He’s the best in the bunch. Risked his life to save mine, as you know.”

  “Yes, sir. I don’t know why people treat him so bad. He’s done nothing to them.”

  “Abigail, I like Andy. I think he’ll make big tracks on this land, but not here. He needs to go where people don’t know his past. Too
many hard feelings against Indians with people here.”

  Her voice trembled. “Why don’t you tell him that?”

  He smiled at her. “I did, several times, but there’s something holding him here.”

  Her insides fluttered with hope. “Did he say what?”

  JT chuckled and glanced sideways at her. “No, but he didn’t have to.”

  Their conversation stopped as they approached the front of the jail. “Abigail, perhaps you better stay out here.”

  She glanced around at the shadows and the saloon, gulped, said, “No, I’ll go in with you.”

  Moments passed as he looked at her and then nodded.

  When Abbey had first gone in the jail she’d eased the door open and entered like a team of horses were trying to pull her in against her will. JT wasn’t Abbey. He slammed the door open and marched in like he owned the place.

  The sheriff’s feet hit the floor and he bounced out of his chair, standing at attention, his gut giggling one way then another.

  JT’s granite hard voice, one that Abbey had never heard before, shattered the stillness. “I understand you have Andy Johansson in this jail. Get him out now.”

  The sheriff’s fat jowls shook as he tried to find words. When none came out, JT said, “Right now, Sheriff.”

  When Toley hurried to the back with keys in hand, the older man turned to Abbey. He patted her on the shoulder. “Run on home, now. He’ll be out in a few minutes.”

  Abbey hesitated, but she trusted JT, and the sheriff wasn’t about to give him any gruff about judges. Her goal was to get Andy out and she wasn’t needed right then. She sighed, “Thank you, sir. I appreciate it.”

  She left the jail and headed home, not wanting the confrontation she expected with her father. Because she was preoccupied with that and Andy, she failed to see the shadow following her.

  As dawn peeked over the trees in the east, a groan slipped from the man lying on Andy’s bed. Andy rose and bent over him. It was the first sound he’d made except the labored breathing. Besides the cuts and lumps on the man’s head, and bruises on his body, Andy suspected he also had broken ribs.