by Lydia Olson
“I’m not scared of Ryan,” she said, glaring.
“I didn’t think you were.” Wilson nudged her shoulder. “Now, come here.”
He took her by the hand and helped her to her feet, guiding her around the back corner of the saloon and toward the opposite alley. When they were out of Ryan’s view, Wilson kissed her again and urged her around the back of the hotel, passed the stables, and toward the saloon. Eloise sighed.
“Can’t you stay with me just a little longer?”
“I would love to stay with you longer, but I wouldn’t wanna hurt your reputation by returning to the saloon together – people might get the wrong idea,” he explained. “And I don’t think anything could ruin our night. It’s been too wonderful. Good night for now, Ellie.”
Wilson squeezed Eloise’s hands, let them fall to her sides, and turned around to run back toward the stables.
Eloise thought it was odd that he would run that way, but she felt too much as if she were floating on a cloud to dwell on it. As she stepped back onto the road, the memories of her evening carried her weightlessly to where, not long before, she was dancing with Wilson.
Forgetting that she had one of Maudie’s nice dresses on, Eloise plopped down in the dirt and stared up at the stars. She replayed everything, from the moment she’d run into Wilson at the start of the masquerade to the very last sight of him as he’d disappeared behind the Saint George just moments ago, hoping that reliving the night would help her remember it forever.
The visions of the two of them dancing and laughing put her in a sort of daze that she never wanted to come out of.
Unfortunately, the sound of shouting near the stables would not allow her to stay engulfed in her daydream. Worrying for Wilson, Eloise carefully moved toward the building and leaned against the wall at the front of the saloon.
There was a scuffle of agitated horses in the stables, which was drowning out the men’s words so that Eloise couldn’t make out much of the conversation.
“Yeah, I remember you!” she thought she heard someone yell.
Just before Eloise committed to the decision to run down the alley and break up the fight, three loud bangs rang out in the air. She froze. This wasn’t the first time she’d heard that sound, but her first thought was for Wilson. She didn’t think Wilson would hurt someone else, but she feared what Ryan was capable of.
“What was that?” a man yelled, pulling Eloise away from the edge of the building. “From inside, it sounded like it was coming from the stables!”
“I-I think it was...” she replied. “I think those were gunshots...”
Chapter Fourteen
A crowd stood nervously at the corner nearest the stables out front of Miss Maudie’s Saloon. Some peered around the corner, wide-eyed, curious to see where the shooter went.
Others stood back, hands resting on their own holsters, putting on the toughest faces they could muster while they awaited the potential shooter. Only a split-second had passed, but the crowds in this town knew how quick they needed to be able to get out of there at the sound of gunfire. In this case, however, they ran toward the shots rather than away.
“It’s too dark back there!” one man said, squinting down the alley.
“Wait, someone’s coming!” another called out.
The crowd scurried away from the edge, toppling over one another until they were safe in Miss Maudie’s.
Cautiously, they watched through doors and windows as a man in an upper-class suit ran from the alley and down the road in the opposite direction. Eloise gasped and pushed her way through the saloon to the crowd nearest the exit. The man at the front of the group fell to the ground as she barreled through the mass of people and out the front door.
“Wilson!” she yelled.
He looked over his shoulder, but he didn’t stop running. Though Eloise couldn’t see his face, she knew he had seen her.
After losing him like this when she was a kid, Eloise couldn’t bear to think of losing him again. She threw off her nice shoes, brushed angry tears from her eyes, and ran, barefoot, down the road behind him. He wasn’t going to get away without saying goodbye this time, she thought.
“Wilson! Don’t you leave me, ya hear?” she yelled. “Don’t you go without explaining yourself this time!”
Tears blurred Eloise’s vision, preventing her from seeing a jagged rock jutting out of the road.
Running at full speed, her foot hit the edge of the rock in just the right way to twist her ankle and send pain shooting up her leg. She gasped and stumbled to the side of the road, collapsing to the ground. The pain was too much. There was no way to keep running now.
Helpless and hopeless, Eloise stood alone in the street, watching Wilson disappear into the darkness. Pain surged in her ankle, but it couldn’t compare to the weight on her shoulders. After the night they just had together, she couldn’t believe Wilson would leave her like this. Eloise felt a gentle touch around her shoulders and heard the soothing voice of Miss Maudie behind her.
“It’ll be all right, sweetheart,” she cooed. “Now, come along – let’s go get that ankle looked at.”
“That’s nothing,” Eloise spat through angry tears. “All I know is he’d better come back... I’d better get to see him again. I don’t know what happened back there, but it wasn’t him.”
“Sure, sure,” said Miss Maudie. “Now, darlin’, I think it’s time to go inside.”
Eloise reluctantly nodded. Miss Maudie revealed Eloise’s shoes, which she had apparently picked up moments after Eloise had thrown them off. While she crouched down and helped put her shoes back on, Miss Maudie kept glancing at Eloise’s face, concern in her eyes.
“I shouldn’t have made you come to this, should I?” Maudie asked, forcing a smile.
“I’m glad I came,” Eloise assured her, brushing a tear from her eye, “I just wish it ended differently.”
“Yes,” Miss Maudie whispered. “So do I.”
Miss Maudie helped Eloise to her feet, wrapped an arm around her, and guided her back to the saloon. Eloise noticed that as they walked, the pain in her ankle seemed to decrease with time. They didn’t have to walk far before Eloise no longer needed Miss Maudie as a crutch, though she was still limping and turning her foot awkwardly to prevent further bouts of pain.
As they neared the saloon, they saw several men peering anxiously down the alley toward the stables. They looked like they were preparing to go investigate, but were waiting to be sure no one else with a gun was hiding back there. One man, the fellow who had pulled Eloise away from the action a moment before, came running over when he saw her.
The man was short and squirrely, with long, auburn sideburns and scruff on his face. He wore a plain hat and boots, and there was nothing particularly noticeable about him except his long stride and perpetually determined facial expression. Eloise’s first thought when she saw him was that he was an average man with a forgettable face. She was confused why he was approaching them.
“You seemed to know who that was, running away?” he said to Eloise.
“Oh, uh, I think so,” she admitted.
“Now, I don’t know who the guy is, but I recognized the expensive clothes he had on. I think that’s the guy the sheriff’s been having us keep an eye on,” he told her.
“Why’s the sheriff been keeping an eye on him?” Eloise put her hands on her hips.
“Well, the guy’s been elusive, but sheriff says he’s dangerous,” the man explained, leaning in so as to avoid being overheard. “He says the guy’s a gold thief from California, here to run this town to the ground. Says he’s gonna destroy this place with his sly, business tactics.
“He’s been buying up and stealing land deeds and the like, making it so he doesn’t look like a criminal, but he’s sure acting like one. I don’t know much about it, but Vincent tells me the man pulled his gun on them before, so this comes as no surprise.”
“When did he pull his gun on this Vincent guy?” Eloise scoffed. “A
nd what did Vincent do to deserve it?”
“Now, now,” Miss Maudie interjected, putting her hand on the man’s shoulder. “I don’t think now’s the best time for this – Ellie's just got her ankle injured. We can talk later, honey.”
“No, I wanna hear this,” Eloise insisted. “And my ankle is fine!”
Miss Maudie muttered something under her breath about not having the time, patted the man on the back, and wandered back into the saloon. The crowd of men near the stables were packed tightly against the wall, silently pressing their ears toward the stables to listen for movement. The man glanced at the crowd, looked back at Eloise, and sighed.
“Man called Vincent was in a card game with the sheriff, one other man, and the stranger who just ran away,” he continued. “That stranger won a large pot of money at that game, but the sheriff suspected him of foul play and tried to keep him from taking it. Vincent said the guy pulled a gun on the sheriff and threatened him, even took some land deeds off him.
“After the stranger got the money out of the saloon that night, he started lingering around people and places – like your father’s ranch, ‘cause of how far from town it is, and Miss Maudie’s Saloon, here – which could protect someone from the sheriff temporarily. Vincent saw him dancing with you earlier, so I assume he’s been using you for protection, too?”
“Using me?” Eloise scoffed. “And just who is this Vincent?”
“That one, right there.” The man pointed toward a man stumbling away from the crowd.
“Him?” Eloise clarified. “But that’s the guy who asked me to dance before, uh... the ‘stranger’ did. If he was so worried about him dancing with me, why didn’t he say anything then?”
“Said he didn’t recognize the guy until after he swept you away,” the man said. “The stranger lied and called you his wife – and you played along with that, didn’t you?”
“He and I have been friends for as long as I can remember!” Eloise shouted. “We were just having fun – and Vincent was drunk. That’s why my friend lied to get me away from him, because he recognized him and didn’t want him to do anything inappropriate.
“Why would you trust what Vincent says when he’s had too much to drink, but you don’t even know my friend? I happen to know him very well, and he’s a good man. I don’t think he would hurt anybody or even draw his gun, unless he had to.”
“Okay, okay,” the man said, holding his hands up. “I’m not looking to start something. If I had known how close you were to him, I wouldn’t have said anything to begin with.”
Eloise took a deep breath and tried not to think about Wilson. To her, if he ran, it was because he was in danger. To everyone else, if he ran, it was because he was guilty. She didn’t understand, however, why he would keep running and not respond to her. He didn’t even stop when she got hurt.
“Why is everyone just standing around?” Eloise asked, trying to change the subject.
“They’re waiting for the sheriff,” the man told her. “He was inside the saloon a few minutes ago, but no one knows where he went. I think that’s what Maudie’s doing – going inside to find him.”
“Well, I’m not waiting for the sheriff.”
Eloise marched right up to the front of the stables, nodded at the crowd of men, and continued storming into the near pitch-black alleyway. The men gawked at Eloise, then drew their shoulders back and followed her, faking confidence, to the stables. As they neared the far end of the stables, they noticed a dim light was lit, like someone had been trying to untie their horse only moments ago.
“Look at this!” one man said, picking up the frayed end of a rope near a beautiful, hickory horse. “This horse has been untied. He hasn’t wandered out yet, so it must’ve been recent. Why didn’t he just jump on this one and go? Why run, when he had a much quicker way out?”
“Because that’s not his horse, and he’s not a thief,” Eloise pointed out, matter-of-factly.
“Whose horse is it?” another man said.
“Hold on, now,” the first said. “Isn’t this horse the sheriff’s?”
“How’d you figure?” the other said.
“Well, because I’m sure this is the sheriff’s saddle, and I think I remember his horse being this color,” he said, rubbing his hands along the leather saddle. “It’s dark, so I couldn’t say for sure on the horse’s color, but I’d recognize this handiwork anywhere, because it’s mine.”
The other man gasped and raised his eyebrows. While several men searched through the hay on the ground for signs that a gun had been fired there, Eloise noticed the man she’d spoken to earlier looking around near the back alley. Curious, she walked over to join him.
“What are you looking for?”
“Bullet holes,” he told her, squinting at the walls.
“But the shots came from the stables, didn’t they?” wondered Eloise. “Wouldn’t you find them over there?”
“No, the way sound works in an alley like this, I think we might’ve heard more like an echo,” he said. “I think if the shots had been fired in the stable – in such a small space – we would’ve noticed the bullet holes right away, because it would leave much larger holes. The stables are made of more brittle wood, so it wouldn’t handle the impact from close range.
“Back here, though, if you’re just the right distance away from the edge, the sound of gunfire is gonna jump from the stables to the courtyard, but sound like it came straight from the stables. That’s why the Whiskey Girls warn everyone not to come back here to do anything they wanna keep a secret. No, I think the gunfire came from back here.”
“What was your name again?” Eloise asked.
“Lawson.” He shook her hand. “Didn’t realize you didn’t know me.”
She raised an eyebrow. “How would I know you?”
“Well, I’ve seen you in Miss Maudie’s multiple times,” he said. “She comes and talks to me at the bar, has me keep an eye on things for her. You’ve looked me in the eye once or twice, and I thought she would’ve mentioned me, seeing as I’m her source of information.”
“Strange, I really don’t remember that,” Eloise told him. “Maudie never tells me where she hears things, and I never ask, either – but I am curious. Where are you getting your information?”
“I like to think of myself as a bit of a detective,” explained Lawson. “My father was a policeman in New York when I was younger, and I learned a lot from him. I would’ve become one too, if it weren’t for my father’s death and my mother’s move out west to remarry.
“But I still do what I can. I keep my eyes open, and I learn things. I watch the roads, and I listen to what the travelers are saying. Miss Maudie’s a good gal, so I share what I learn with her if it’ll keep her and her girls safe. I’d like to think it keeps you all safe, I mean.”
“Lawson,” Eloise whispered, “if you’re a detective – there’s something I wonder if you would help me with?”
“I thought you might ask,” he said, raising a finger in the air. “Seeing how you reacted to the suspicion of your friend, Wilson.”
“You already knew...?”
“I learned it the moment you did,” he told her. “I was sitting right near ya.”
“Really? And I didn’t even notice,” she admitted, gawking.
“Ah, but the best detectives are the ones you never see,” he said. “That’s why I keep looking as average as I can, make myself a common visitor and never draw attention to myself. I blend myself into the background. You’d be amazed the things you learn when people forget you’re around.”