“A word of advice,” Dr. Gleeson went on. “Don’t try to take on a man like Camden Sturgess. But if you do, make sure next time you have a plan. He certainly will.”
“Thanks,” she said, turning to head up the road again.
“Oh,” he said, pointing his pipe at her. “One more thing. What you said about the people in this town…it may be truer than you think.”
Sally stopped again and gave him a long look as he tucked the pipe up under his moustache and lit it with a long match. She’d never really known Emile Gleeson all that well. She knew he was a good doctor, and that he liked to talk fancy. Word around Lockdale was that he’d studied over in Europe for a time, even fought in a war over there. He looked out at her serenely from under his bushy eyebrows, but she couldn’t make out exactly what his expression communicated, but she wasn’t quite interested in talking to him anymore.
So she headed back up the street, making it to the steps of the sheriff’s office just as Sheriff Hoskins was stepping back out.
“Sheriff, this ain’t right,” Sally said. “You need to let that man go.”
“Now Sally,” he said. “I’m just doing my job.”
“Like you did when they killed my husband?”
Hoskins sighed, a sadness crossing his face. He lowered his voice. “You know I’m sorry about that,” he said. “But there were no witnesses and no evidence. As far as the law is concerned, my hands are tied.”
“Well as far as I can tell, Camden Sturgess is the law around here,” Sally said. “That man in there is the only person around here with the guts to stand up for what’s right, and something tells me you mean to hang him.”
“What I mean to do is make sure he gets a fair trial.”
Sally shook her head. “Not likely,” she said.
“You best just head on home now,” Hoskins said.
Now she did start crying. She couldn’t help it, though she hated herself for it. “I ain’t got a horse nor wagon.”
Sheriff Hoskins sighed again. “All right, then,” he said. “I’ll get Tommy to take you home.” He took a white handkerchief from his shirt pocket, walked down the steps, and handed it to Sally. She took it and blowed her nose.
“Deputy Tanner!” Hoskins yelled toward the office door. Within a few seconds, a gangly young redhead opened the door. His clothes looked too big for his body. The gun slung on his hip looked obscenely out of place.
“Sheriff?” Deputy Tanner said, his voice soft and high.
“Go on to the stables and get the wagon,” Hoskins said. “And give Miss Macintosh here a ride back to her ranch.”
Tanner looked from his boss to Sally, his mouth open.
“Did you understand what I said?” Hoskins asked.
“Oh,” Tanner said. “Yessir.” He trotted down the steps, looking to Sally like a puppet being jerked along on strings. He made for the stables.
“Can I see him?” Sally said to the sheriff. “Once more before I go?”
Hoskins took his hat off and rubbed his forehead. “No, ma’am,” he said. “That wouldn’t be a good idea.”
She nodded, tears and the anger both welling back up. She blew her nose into the handkerchief one last time, then offered it back to Sheriff Hoskins.
“Uh,” he said, “you go on and keep that.”
Deputy Tanner rode up on the wagon, pulled by two horses. The sheriff stepped forward and held out his hand to help Sally up, but she ignored the gesture, grabbing onto the seat and hauling herself up.
Sheriff Hoskins took a step back as Sally settled into the seat beside Tanner. “I’m sorry about the way things turned out, Sally,” he said. “I truly am.”
“Not as sorry as me, Willard,” she said. “Thank you for the ride, and the handkerchief.”
He tipped his hat as Tommy whipped the reins, jolting the wagon forward.
The ride back home was long and somber. Sally tried a couple of times to engage the deputy in conversation, but he didn’t seem to have much to say.
“How long have you been a deputy,” she asked him as they made it just out of town.
He looked up and the sky, thinking for a minute. “Um, three weeks, ma’am,” he finally said.
“Why did you want to be a deputy?”
Again, a long pause. “Well,” he said. “I got four brothers and three sisters, and my pa says I ain’t worth a lick on the farm. So he told me one day to go into town and get a job. Sheriff Hoskins needed a new deputy, so there you go.”
“There you go,” Sally said. She didn't think he was too bright, but overall he seemed like a decent enough fellow. She sat the rest of the way in silence, thinking about Logan. He’d just come into her life, and now, just like that, he was likely to be taken away. Tears threatened once again, but she fought them back.
At the turn-off to her ranch, she turned to Tanner again. “Tommy?” she asked.
“Ma’am?” He shifted in his seat. He had been enjoying the quiet ride, and she could tell he didn’t like conversing too much, but she pressed on.
“Would you ever go against the Sheriff?”
He got a confused look on his face. “I’m not sure I know what you mean, ma’am.”
“Well, what if Sheriff Hoskins told you to do something that you knew was wrong?”
Tommy seemed to relax at that. “Aw, I don’t think that would ever happen,” he said. “I do everything the sheriff tells me. He’s a good man.”
“Right,” Sally said. “But what if he said to do something that you knew deep down in your heart was bad? What if he told you to do something bad to your own family?”
Tommy seemed horrified and insulted by the idea. “But he wouldn’t do that,” he said, raising his voice.
“Okay,” Sally said. “Okay.” She wasn’t going to be able to count on Deputy Tanner if bad turned to worst.
When they reached the house and barn, Tommy started to climb out of his seat. She put a hand on his arm.
“It’s okay, deputy,” she said. “I can manage.” She climbed down. “I’m sorry I upset you.”
He gave her a genuine smiled. “Aw, you didn’t upset me, Miss Macintosh,” he said.
“Good,” she said. “Thank you for the ride.”
He tipped his hat and turned the wagon around. She turned to look at what she had, which was no more than she’d had two days ago. But all of a sudden it felt like less, a lot less.
She had told Logan he was wrong about Sturgess, that standing up was the right thing to do. And now he was in jail, a place that according to him he’d been before. But now he was likely to never get out, and she felt responsible.
She felt like just sitting down on the ground right there and not getting up again. That would be the easy thing to do. But there were chores to be done, plenty of them. The chickens needed feeding. The horses needed tending. And why should she neglect her duties? Because she was feeling sorry for herself?
Things looked grim, that was certain. But her mother had gone through hard times, and she’d always taken care of their home without so much as a word of complaint.
Sally took a deep breath and headed toward the barn.
She worked through the rest of that hot afternoon and into the evening, pushing herself as hard as she could, trying to drive the thoughts out of her head. She didn’t manage to do that completely, but she was able to wear herself out well enough that she thought she might actually get some sleep.
Her last chore of the day was to haul water from the well, heating some on the wood stove, and pouring herself a hot bath. As she soaked the soreness out of her muscles, sitting in the tub with the light of only two candles burning, she thought of Logan.
She wished they hadn’t gone into town this morning. But if they hadn’t, eventually Sturgess and his goons would have come to then, and the outcome likely would have been the same.
What was it Doctor Gleeson had said to her? Whenever you decide to confront a man like Sturgess, you’d better have a plan. But she was just a farm
girl. What did she know of strategies and plans? Besides, the one man who could help her was tucked away in a jail cell in town.
Sally tucked her knees up against herself and hugged as tight as she could.
That night she crawled into bed and blew out the bedside candle, thinking of him as the smell of the smoke faded away.
Sally was awoken the next morning, not by the crow of Hancock, the rooster, nor the early morning sun. Someone was banging on her front door.
She sat up straight in bed, adrenaline pumping through her veins. The shotgun was gone. They still had a hunting rifle, but it was in the other room. She could—
“Sally!” the muffled voice came through the door. It was Sheriff Hoskins. She relaxed a bit, but still wondered what he might be doing here. The sun had barely begun to poke up over the horizon. It was still mostly dark.
“Coming!” she yelled, pulling on a robe and her boots.
“Sally, you need to open this door right n—”
She swung the door open. The sheriff stood there, a grim look on his face. On either side of him stood two men. On his right was Deputy Tanner, his brow furrowed in anxious anticipation. On the left was George Simmers, a man she barely knew who worked down at the tin mine. Each man was wearing a gun.
She saw movement over Hoskins’ shoulder and saw two men working her barn door open.
“Hey!” she yelled at them. Then at the sheriff: “Just what’s going on here?”
“Save us some time, Sally,” he said in a soft voice. “Just tell us where he is.”
She rubbed her eyes and tried to shake the cobwebs out of her head. She was usually an early riser, but she had slept hard last night and they had caught her completely off-guard.
“What are you talking about, Willard?” she said.
He sighed heavily, then firmly took her by the shoulders and pushed her aside.
“Hey!” she cried out again, but the sheriff ignored her. He and his deputies, one apparently deputized just for the occasion, made their way past her and into her house.
“George, go check in that back room,” Hoskins said. “Tommy, you just look in here for the moment.”
“What are you—” then Sally stopped herself, realizing. She hadn’t had her cup of coffee yet, so it had taken her longer than it should have. Logan. They were looking for him. She dropped her voice to a whisper. “He escaped?”
The sheriff stepped close to her. “Look, Sally. This’ll go better for everybody if you just tell us where he is.”
She smiled to herself, then looked up at the sheriff. “You know I wouldn’t tell you if I knew,” she said. “But honest-to-God, I don’t.” She knew they wouldn’t believe her, so why not just let them look?
He looked her straight in the eyes. He wasn’t the oldest lawman in the state, but he was getting up there. He’d dealt with a bellyful of bad people in his life, and she knew he had a pretty keen eye for sniffing out lies. She saw his eyes soften as he realized she was likely telling the truth.
“Aw, hell,” he said. “I’m sorry, Sally, but I’m still gonna have to search every inch of this place. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be—”
“—doing your job,” she finished. “I know, Sheriff. It’s fine.” She cinched the sash on her robe tight. “I was about to make some coffee. Is that all right?”
“Yeah,” he said, nodding. “You go right ahead.”
She began to fill the kettle, then turned to look over her shoulder. “Would you like me to make some for you and your men? Maybe fry you up some eggs as well?”
“Oh, come on now, Sally,” he said, actually blushing a little. Here his men were sniffing in every little corner of her house and barn, and she was offering to cook them breakfast. “You don’t need to go to any trouble.”
“It’s no trouble, Sheriff,” she said. “My hens are plopping out more eggs than I can eat by myself. And Sturgess has seen to it that no one in town will buy anything from me. Someone might as well eat them.”
He gave her a smile and a little shake of the head. Then he pulled up a kitchen chair and sat down. “I don’t think you know where he is,” he said. “I can see that. But I reckon you’re not too upset to learn he’s out.”
Sally put the kettle on and got out her frying pan. “No, I’m not,” she said. “Would you mind much telling me how it happened?”
Hoskins let out a little laugh. “Why not,” he said. “Damnedest thing I ever seen. I stayed at the office myself til just past midnight. He was in his cell then. I know that for sure. He was sitting up in the cot, his back propped against the wall, one knee up. Looked relaxed, like it wasn’t his first time behind bars.”
It wasn’t, of course, but Sally didn’t offer up that information. She could see him in her mind, sitting there in the cell.
“I wanted at least two men there at all times,” he went on. “Pete took over for me, and we actually had two other men there through the night. They were sitting not ten feet from him, playing cards. Pete got up to take a p—, um, to relieve himself at some point. He figures sometime between three and four. And they said he was just gone. The cell was empty. No, that ain’t right. Not quite empty.”
Sally paused cracking an egg and turned to the Sheriff. “What do you mean?”
Hoskins was shaking his head. “His clothes,” he said. “They was laid out on his cot like he was getting ready for Sunday service, just like he’d been lying there. His hat was on the pillow, his shirt below that, and his pants stretched out, the boots tucked into the legs.”
Yes, Sally thought, that was strange. But then, she found herself not being nearly as surprised as she would have expected. Everything about Logan Carter had been strange.
“What do you think happened?” Sally asked.
Hoskins took off his hat and scratched his head. “Well, near as I can figure, the prisoner took off his clothes and placed them on the bed in the manner I just described. Then he somehow squeezed through the bars and made his way out of the building.”
As he said it out loud, Sally could tell he didn’t believe his own theory. It was outlandish.
“He’s a big man,” Sally said. “How do you figure he squeezed through the bars?”
Hoskins put his hat back on his head. His brow was knotted the whole time. He didn’t look comfortable at all. “Maybe he greased himself up. We served him beef roast and mashed taters for an evening meal. Miss Popper fixed it up and brought it over. He didn’t touch it, or so we thought. Maybe he rubbed the meat on his chest and legs. There’s no window in that cell, so he had to get through the bars.”
“All without any of your three men seeing him,” she said. “Sitting ten feet away.”
“That’s right,” he finally looked her in the eyes. “Like I said before, it’s the damnedest thing I ever heard of.”
Sally turned back around to crack the egg in the skillet. It sizzled, the whites bubbling up along the edges. She felt a smile form on her lips. She just couldn’t help it.
What was the first thing he had ever asked her? What year was it?
Yes, she had to agree with Sheriff Hoskins. This was also the damnedest thing she had ever heard of. She cracked another egg and wondered exactly where Logan was.
8: Logan
He lay on the cot in the jailhouse, thinking to himself just how stupid it had been to go straight at Sturgess. But he’d had to see the man for himself. Now he had, and there was no doubt. Harken Sturgess was a direct descendent of Camden Sturgess. How many generations was that? Seven? Eight?
It didn’t really matter, did it? The idea that he’d run into another Sturgess, this far in the past, seemed beyond coincidental. The universe or God or something was trying to tell him something. He hadn’t been sent here by mistake.
And yet, he may have already screwed everything up by being an idiot. How had that little man, Winston, gotten the drop on him? However it had happened, it damned sure wouldn’t happen again.
“Full house!” one of the men yelled from the ta
ble just a stone’s throw from the cell. Three of them sat at a small round table, a lamp hanging from a hook on the wall.
“Dammit, Pete,” another one said. “That’s three hands in a row.”
Pete had a long, scraggly black beard, and it shook as he laughed and plucked the money from the middle of the table. “Maybe we ought to play something more your speed,” he said. “How bout a nice game of checkers?”
“Just shut up and deal.”
Logan watched them, their shadows flickering against the far wall. He didn’t know what time it was. Late, that was all he knew. He pulled the brim of his hat down over his eyes and put his chin on his chest. Maybe even with the noise of the men he might still be able to get a little sleep. He’d reevaluate his position tomorrow. It certainly didn’t look good, but maybe he could figure a way out of this mess.
As he began to nod off, he thought of Sally. He’d been wrong about her. Superficially she was like his Natalie, but once he’d gotten to know her a little, they were worlds apart. Sally had a strength in her, a kind of fire, that he didn’t think he’d ever seen in a woman. Here she was, living at the edge of a new civilization, her husband brutally murdered. And she was hanging on. No, not just that. She was fighting for what was hers.
On top of all that, she was beautiful. He could see her long blonde hair, her wide hazel eyes, little flecks of green in the iris. He could see, and almost taste, her soft, red lips. He regretted not doing something when he had the chance. There had been a dozen different moments since he’d arrived that he could have moved close to her, taken her in his arms, kissed her long and deep. He could feel his hands on her body, pressing her tight into him. He would have cupped the back of her neck, tilted her head back, and kissed her soft, white throat. He would have—
A bright white light lit the backs of his eyelids. He felt a horrible, familiar ripple of static electricity permeate his body, down to the tips of his fingers and toes.
It’s happening, he thought. They finally found me.
Then that thought was washed out by a flash of pain, radiating out from his spine. He arched his back and began to scream, but the light filled everything.
The Time-Traveling Outlaw Page 6