Brett sank back down onto the log. Connie struggled against the man’s hold as she yelled. “Don’t pay no mind to him. Run, Brett! Run!”
Brett saw the bruises on her face and a murderous rage filled him. He glanced toward their guns well out of reach. His gaze skimmed over his Bible as he looked back at Connie and peace filled his heart. The words he had only moments earlier been reading from the thirty-first Psalm began to flow from him in the form of a personal prayer.
“In thee, O Lord, do I put my trust. Bow down Thine ear to me; deliver Connie and me from the evil that threatens us for Thou art my rock and my fortress. Into Thine hand I commit my spirit for Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God of truth. Thou hast not shut me up into the hand of the enemy, but Thou hast set my feet in a large room. Have mercy on us now, O Lord, for we are in trouble. Our lives are in Your hands, deliver us from our enemy. Make Thy face to shine upon us, and save us for Thy mercies’ sake. Let the wicked be ashamed, and let him lie silent in the grave.”
Time seemed to stand still as none moved or spoke. The sheriff’s slack-jawed expression twisted, and the gun in his hand began to shake. “Shut up! Just shut up! Ain’t nobody gonna save you now. I got the control here. You and this little gal is gonna die. God cain’t save you. As for her,” he nudged the gun against Connie’s temple. “God don’t want nothin’ to do with the likes of her.”
Brett looked directly into the man’s eyes. “Blessed be the Lord,” he spoke in a soft voice, yet the words carried without effort. He saw it in the sheriff’s eyes glaring at him. “For He hath shown me His marvelous kindness. When I was condemned to die I said in my despair, I am cut off from Thy eyes, O Lord, but He heard my voice when I cried out to Him and came to me. Please, Father, come now and deliver us from this evil man.”
“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” The sheriff screamed at Brett. A stream of profane vileness poured from his mouth as he shoved Connie, sending her sprawling to the ground. With a trembling hand, he swung the barrel of his gun toward Brett.
Brett watched spellbound as if time had slowed. The sheriff’s gun moved into place while Connie scrambled to her feet and leapt toward the sheriff at the same moment he fired. Flame and smoke erupted from the gun barrel and still Brett couldn’t move. A loud boom echoed and re-echoed throughout the mountains.
The sheriff’s eyes grew wide and round while his mouth dropped open. He bowed his head toward a bubbling crimson flower blossoming on his chest. He lifted his head to stare at Brett, his face twisted in disbelief before he crashed to the earth.
Connie grabbed the gun from his limp hand, ran to Brett, and threw herself into his arms. “He’s dead, Brett.”
Brett held her close, his fingers gently explored her battered face. “Are you all right, Connie? He didn’t . . .? Did he . . .?”
She shook her head. “No, he just slapped me around a little and twisted my arm. I been beat up before. It don’t hurt so bad if you don’t think about it.”
Brett held her gently as he kissed her hair. “Oh, Connie. No one should ever touch you that way. Never again, if I can help it.”
They stood together for long moments then turned to the man lying on the ground. Brett knelt and searched for a pulse in his throat. Connie knelt beside Brett and touched his arm. “There ain’t no use in doin’ that, Brett. He’s stone-cold dead.”
Brett nodded and rose. Deep sadness for the dead man’s wasted life filled his soul. “I’ll dig a grave and we’ll give him a proper burial.”
“There ain’t no way you can dig a hole in this ground. It’s solid rock.” She frowned. “What happened to him, anyhow? You don’t have no gun, and I don’t have no gun, but that’s for shore a bullet hole in him. And no more blood than there is, I’d say he died pert’n near instant. What killed him? I mean, I prayed and you prayed, but somethin’ had to make that hole. What was it?”
“You prayed?” Brett searched Connie’s face for the truth.
“Sure, I did, but you prayed better.” Connie shrugged his amazement away. “What I wanta know is what killed him?”
Brett shook his head. The shot had to have come from where he’d been sitting. But how? He’d had no weapon. Only Connie’s knife. “I think I know.” Brett crossed to the log and pulled the knife free. “See this, Connie?”
She joined him and together they examined the knife blade. “The ball he fired hit here,” Brett pointed to a ding an inch under the wooden handle, “And ricocheted.”
Connie took her knife and ran her finger along the flat side of the blade. She touched the indent and looked up at him, her eyes wide. In the distance, a bird called and another answered. Dried leaves in the underbrush rustled as an animal scurried away.
“Ain’t that somethin’?” Connie shook her head. “It went right to his heart just like it was directed there. What do you reckon the chances are on somethin’ like that happenin’?”
“Without the intervention of God I’d say near zero,” Brett lifted his eyes toward the blue heavens above and breathed a prayer of thanks for their deliverance. He brought his gaze back to search her face. “What’s this about you praying?”
She shrugged. “I just asked the Almighty to save you, ’cause He’s your heavenly Father. I figgered He’d care what happened to you.”
“He cares about you, too, Connie.” Brett’s heart lifted at the first stirrings of hope that Connie might accept the Christian message.
But she frowned and moved as if his assurance annoyed her. “What you said back there—that prayer—it was mighty beautiful. I didn’t know you could talk like that.”
He gave a short laugh. “I didn’t either. God must have given me the words from what I’d just been reading.”
Brett looked back down at the sheriff’s body. “We can’t leave him lying here like this.” He put his arm around Connie. “His horse is surely around somewhere, maybe we could take him with us and turn him over to the sheriff in the next town. That way he’d have a Christian burial.”
Connie shook her head. “That wouldn’t never work, Brett. Nobody on earth that didn’t see it would believe he shot hisself. You’d be right back in jail where you started and this time there wouldn’t be nobody to save you, ‘cause I’d be swingin’ right alongside of you.”
Brett turned and walked back to the log to sit down. He couldn’t dig a hole, he couldn’t take the body to the authorities, and he for sure couldn’t leave it lying there for the wild varmints to find. What were they going to do?
Connie sat beside him while they both stared at the dead body. Already flies buzzed around his face and wide-open eyes.
“I know what we can do with him,” Connie exclaimed. “We can drag his no account carcass into the cave and drop him down that hole.”
The thought of dragging the sheriff’s body anywhere, let alone dropping it down into that bottomless pit, made Brett feel a little sick. “I don’t know, Connie. After all he was a man—”
“Just barely.” Connie murmured. She clutched his arm. “That hole’s the perfect buryin’ place. Won’t nobody never find him there.”
Brett shook his head. “I don’t know. It seems so heartless somehow.”
“Look at me, Brett! See my face? This ain’t the first time he’s hit me, neither. Nor twisted my arm.” She rubbed her left shoulder. “Did he have any heart when he done this to me?”
“No, he didn’t.” Brett touched the livid purple bruises on her face, tenderly caressing them. Her left eye was swollen and the sheriff’s thumb had left a huge dark red spot under her right eye as well as the bruises on her left cheek where his hand had been clamped over her mouth.
His hand dropped from her face. “We’ll do it your way.”
“We’d better hurry afore the maggots start crawlin’ out of his nose and mouth.” Connie stood and strode to the sheriff’s body. Brett followed.
“Do you want his boots?” She asked.
“His boots?” Brett repeated, understanding but not wanting to.
&
nbsp; “His boots are practically new and yours are about worn out.” Connie dropped to her knees beside the corpse and began to go through his pockets. “He ain’t gonna need ‘em where he’s gone so’s you might as well have ’em.”
“Connie, what are you doing?”
She paused in her search and looked up into Brett’s disbelieving face. “I’m lookin’ for anything of value.” She gave a short laugh. “It’d be a waste to throw anything good down that hole. Pull them boots off! If you don’t want them we can always sell ’em. Help me turn him over so’s I can see what he’s got in his hip pockets.”
When Brett hesitated, Connie laughed at him. “There ain’t nothin’ to be squeamish about, ’cause he can’t hurt us now.”
Brett tried to convince himself she was only being practical, but there was a coldness in her voice and the impersonal way she searched the body that chilled him. Nevertheless, he dropped to his knees and helped her turn the sheriff so she had access to the back pockets.
She seemed disappointed when she finished and sat back on her heels. “He said he had a letter from Davis, but I can’t find it. If he weren’t lyin’, maybe it’s in his saddlebags.”
They turned him on his back and pulled his boots off. He was a big man and unwieldy. It seemed to take forever to drag him the few feet into the cave. They pulled him across the floor to the pit before straightening. Brett breathed deep while his heart settled.
He noticed Connie rubbing her left arm and shoulder. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Let’s straighten him out and shove him over so’s we can get outta here.”
When they had the body parallel to the pit, Brett hesitated. “Don’t you think we should say a prayer over him? Or something?”
“What for?” Connie frowned at him as if he were crazy. “He’s dead. He ain’t gonna know the difference.”
“I know, but still . . .” Brett held his hand out to her and she took it. “It doesn’t seem right to say nothing.” He bowed his head and searched for the right words to say. Finally he spoke. “Lord, You know this man claimed he knew You once, and You know what was in his heart. You are the only one qualified to judge. Have mercy on him, I pray. In Jesus name. Amen.”
Connie’s eyes were open, staring at him when he finished. “Well, that’s done then.” She took a deep breath and dropped to her knees beside the sheriff. “Come on! Let’s get it over with.”
It didn’t take much effort to roll the big man over the edge. They knelt beside the pit until they heard the distinct splash of water. Connie stood first. “I’d reckon we’d better find his horse. Then we can light a shuck outta here.”
“Yeah, I guess so.” Brett’s insides churned and he ran for the cave opening. Outside he stumbled to the nearest tree and, supporting himself with one hand, released pent up nerves along with the meager contents of his stomach.
“You all right?” Connie stood behind him.
“I’ll be fine.” He answered without turning. As he lifted his gaze, he saw a fresh wound in the trunk of the tree near his hand. The piece of lead lodged in the bark came free with little persuasion. “Connie, get me the gun the sheriff fired.”
Within seconds she returned and handed Brett the pistol. He slid a bullet from the chamber and held it in his hand beside the one from the tree.
“It’s the same, ain’t it?” Connie’s soft voice confirmed his thoughts and he nodded. Although one side was flattened, the lead could have easily come from the one spent cartridge still in the gun.
“What’s that mean, Brett? If the sheriff’s bullet hit my knife and then stuck in this here tree, where’d that bullet in the sheriff come from?”
Brett scanned the silent, now deceptively peaceful forest and shook his head. “I don’t know, Connie. All I can say is the sooner we’re away from here the better I’ll like it.”
He put both bullets in his pocket and took Connie’s hand in his. “Let’s pack up and find that horse.”
Chapter 11
The sheriff’s horse wasn’t hard to find. The handsome bay was tied to a small sapling at the edge of the strawberry field. Connie retrieved her hat with the berries still inside. Back at camp, she insisted they eat the cooled rabbits and berries she picked. The sun was straight overhead when they kicked dirt over the fire, and rode toward the main trail leading the big bay.
Connie watched Brett. He was quiet, probably brooding over the way they’d disposed of the Sheriff’s body. But there’d been nothing else they could’ve done. She wasn’t about to turn herself or Brett in for a murder they hadn’t committed. If the sheriff hadn’t killed himself, someone else had, pure and simple. That thought caused goose bumps to rise on her arms and a chill to go down the back of her neck.
Still, she reasoned, either way, Brett’s heavenly Father must’ve stepped in to save them from the sheriff. She needed to puzzle that out some more. She’d asked for God’s help, and it sure seemed that’s what they got. Brett’s prayer was so pretty, she figured God heard him and not her.
She rubbed her shoulder. It hurt something fierce, but she hadn’t wanted to take time to fuss with it. All she wanted to do was put as much distance as possible between them and the cave before they stopped for the night. She gritted her teeth and rode with her arm bent in her lap as much as she could.
As afternoon slid into evening they came to a small glen beside a clear, cool stream of water. Connie stopped Chester. “Think we might camp here?”
Brett brought Fugitive to a halt and turned to look at her. Concern covered his face. “You look ready to drop. Why didn’t you say something sooner?”
He dismounted and stepped close to help her from the saddle. When she cried out, he lifted her and held her in his arms. “You’re hurt more than just bruises, aren’t you?”
She nodded, biting her lower lip to keep from crying. “My arm. He twisted it behind me.”
Brett lowered her to the grass on his bedroll then sat down and let her lean against him while he examined her arm and shoulder. She rested her head against his chest and let the dizziness swirl around her.
“It’s dislocated.” The words rumbled in his chest as his hand caressed her arm.
“It ain’t broken?” Connie had been sure from the pain that it was.
Brett’s soft voice held concern. “No, there isn’t any break. I know how much it must hurt. How on earth did you endure the pain this long without saying anything?”
Connie gave a wan smile. “I didn’t let myself think about it. I wanted to get away from him. That’s all.”
Brett took a deep breath and let the air out. “Much as I hate to, I’m going to have to set it. Do you understand?”
She nodded.
“I’ve only done this a couple of times to tough cowboys. It’s going to hurt real bad.” The look in his eyes said it would hurt him even more.
She smiled at his concern. “I know.”
Brett swallowed. His gaze slid over her battered face before resting on her shoulder. He looked like he’d rather be anywhere else at the moment.
“I’m sorry, angel, but we may as well do it now so you can start healing.”
Connie drifted at the edge of consciousness. She smiled at him. “I’m ready.”
His hands touched her arm and shoulder and then pain seared her. She didn’t think about it, though. She let Brett’s endearment fill her mind. Had he called her an angel? Didn’t he know she was as far from anything heavenly as a girl could be? Still, the word settled in her mind like a caress and her lips curled upward.
When Brett eased her back to the pallet and slipped away, she wanted to call out to him, but she was too tired. He came back and tied a sling around her left arm then held her close. She looked into his face and saw tears still glistening on his long, dark lashes. She lifted her good arm and patted his cheek. “Why’d you cry?”
He turned away as if embarrassed to be found out.
“Brett?”
When he looked back into he
r face, moisture still hovered in the depths of his eyes. “I hurt you.”
She shook her head. “No, you helped me. He hurt me.”
Brett held her in his arms as if he’d never let her go. He looked at her for several heartbeats before lowering his head and taking her lips in a kiss so tender and loving she almost cried.
When he pulled away, Connie looked up at him, memorizing his face. She had never felt this way before, had never known a man so gentle and kind. Davis had been her ideal man, but Brett far surpassed even the outlaw in her estimation.
He bent with her to lay her back on the bedroll. As if it were the most natural thing to do, he lay beside her, slipping his arm under her to cradle her head against his chest. She felt protected and cherished. A feeling so strong she couldn’t contain it swept through her heart. She used her last ounce of strength to whisper, “I love you, Brett.”
~*~
Brett heard the softly spoken words, but when he turned to see into her eyes, Connie appeared to have fallen asleep. He held her close in his arms and wondered at how precious she’d become to him in the few days of their flight for freedom. It seemed they’d lived a lifetime in a week. So much had happened to him—to them. They’d shared more than they should have. How could he bear to part with her when they reached the end of their journey? How could he give up the wife of his heart? He closed his eyes and concentrated on the feel of her in his arms.
The sky glowed with a warm rosy light in the east when Brett’s eyes opened next. Connie sat beside him with a mischievous gleam in her eyes—what he could see of them. The left side of her face was so swollen her eye was almost completely closed. The bruises stood out in dark testimony to the violence she’d suffered.
She grinned. “’Bout time you woke up.”
Brett grunted and rolled away from her. “Glad to see you’re feeling better.”
She gave him a gentle shove on the back. “Come on, sleepy head. I’m hungry. We didn’t have no supper last night.”
He looked over his shoulder at her and shook his head. “You couldn’t have eaten anything if we had a banquet set before us.”
Connie and the Cowboy (Outlaw Gold) Page 12