A Lady Like Sarah (9 page)

He squeezed the lawman's hand. "Where can I find your family?"

"About. . ." His voice grew weaker.
"Two miles outside of Rocky Creek.
They sent me to Missouri to fetch the prisoner and bring her back." After a beat, he murmured, "
My.
. . my family. . .?"

Justin leaned close. "You have my promise. I will do whatÂever I can to help your family." He didn't know how or even if he could help them, but he was determined to try.

Owen stared up at the sky for several long moments before his eyelids
drooped
shut.

Justin pulled out his Bible and read the Twenty-Third Psalm in a low, mellow voice. "The Lord
is
my shepherd . . ." He had committed the psalm to memory, of course, but he found that by reading it, he always discovered some new meanÂing, some depth of understanding that had previously escaped him.

The words seemed to have an immediate effect. Owen's breathing slowed, and he seemed less agitated.

One of Justin's early mentors told him to listen carefully whenever he attended a birth or death. Justin followed the older preacher's advice and was amazed to discover that a newborn babe's first breath made a
yah
sound and the last breath of the dying sounded like
weh
.
Yahweh.
The biblical name for God.

No sooner had Justin finished the psalm than he heard the unmistakable sound of Owen completing God's name—the last task of the living.

The silence that followed was broken by a strangled gasp behind him. He turned to find Sarah standing a few feet away, her eyes round in horror.

Sarah stood on the crest of a hill, staring at the mound of fresh dirt at her feet. She thought about her parents' graves nestled in the arms of a little white church in Texas. Though it had been years since she visited their final resting place, it comÂforted her to know they weren't alone.

She couldn't imagine anything worse than to be buried out here in the wilderness with only the wind and sky for company.

Together she and Justin had taken turns digging the grave with the one spade they had. It had been hard work to break through the claylike soil, but no more so than carryÂing the marshal's
body up
the hill, which Justin did without complaint.

She'd picked out the site herself, choosing a spot at the base of a sturdy cottonwood whose branches spread far and wide to provide ample shade. The hill commanded an impresÂsive view of the meandering stream below. It would have been easier had she chosen a resting place closer to camp where the soil was softer. But it was too close to the water's edge and she worried about possible flood waters.

She helped Justin cover the grave with rocks to discourÂage animals from digging up the remains. Then she wandered through the brown prairie grass to pick blue buffalo clover, which she scooped up by the roots and replanted near the grave.

The air, heavy as a wet wool blanket, was hard to breathe. Even the shade beneath the tree offered little respite from the heat of the day. Her throat felt like it was lined with burlap and her eyes stung, partly from the oppressive heat but mostly from unshed tears.

Justin's soothing voice washed over her as he read from the Bible. "Ashes to ashes . . ." Despite the heat, he wore his collar and black frock coat, which made him look even more imposing than usual.

After a long while, he closed the Good Book. In all the confusion that had followed Owen's death, he'd forgotten to handcuff her. Not wanting to remind him, she held her hands behind her back.

"I prayed for him to get well," she said. The accusations in her voice crept in unbidden, but she didn't care. God had let her down, yet again, and she didn't care who knew it.

"Your prayers were answered," he said softly. "Owen is well. He's with his heavenly Father."

Sarah couldn't move, her hands tied behind her back. She struggled to pull free, to no avail. Looking up, she gasped. The
hangin
' rope descended from a beam overhead. She watched in horror as the circle of hard fiber cord fell over her head. Her throat closed in protest. She opened her mouth, but the rope at her neck prevented her scream . . .

A male voice cut through her sleep-dazed brain. "Don't move."

Her eyes flew open. A mean-looking
hombre
stood over her. Her mind scrambling, she fought to sit up, but he held her down with a boot to her chest.

A short distance away, Justin lay on his back and stared at the shotgun pointed straight at him, mere inches from his nose.

A deep baritone voice belonging to a barrel of a man said, "Hold it right there, mister."

Sarah recognized the two gunmen as the Mitchell brothÂers. The voice belonged to the older of the two, a round-bellied man with a pock-marked face and a broken nose, named Pete. His brother, called Shorty though he stood over six feet tall, was thin as a snake on stilts and had the dispoÂsition to match. A scar ran down the length of his cheek to his chin, making his face appear lopsided.

Pete prodded Justin with the barrel of his weapon. "Throw down your gun," he drawled.

Justin didn't move a muscle. "I-I don't have a gun."

The man's face darkened.
"A lawman without a gun?
What do you take me for?
A fool?"

"Leave him alone, you—" Sarah held back the name that sprang to the tip of her tongue. Justin looked distraught enough without her adding to his dismay with unsavory talk. "He's not a lawman. He's a preacher," she said. She doubted the good-for-nothin' Mitchells respected
anythin
', let alone a man of the cloth, but it was worth a try.

The man's eyebrows disappeared beneath the brim of his dusty felt hat.
"A preacher?"

"Yeah, and if you bother a preacher, God will punish you, He will."

The man nodded toward the handcuffs on Sarah's wrists and spoke to Justin. "Don't tell me you preach so bad you have to handcuff people before they'll listen to you."

His brother laughed at the joke and grabbed Sarah roughly by the shoulder. She glared up at him. It had been years since she'd last come face-to-face with him, so it wasn't too surprising that he didn't recognize her. "We got no money. We got nothing. So jus' leave us alone, you hear?"

Shorty's beadlike eyes raked the length of her. "I think the little lady underestimates her true worth. What do you say, Pete?"

Pete grinned. "I say it's worth
checkin
' out."

Shorty knelt beside Sarah, grinning. "It'll be my pleasure."

Justin tried to sit up, but Pete stayed him with his shotgun. "Hold it right there, Preacher."

"Leave her alone," Justin warned
,
his lips thin with anger. "If you touch her, I'll—"

Pete laughed in his face. "What do we have here?
A preacher making threats?"

"I'm asking you in the name of God to leave her alone." When his plea went unheeded, Justin struggled to sit up again, but his efforts were rewarded by a whack on the side of the head with the barrel of the gun.

Justin fell backward with a groan, and Sarah cried out. There wasn't much she could do with Pete holding a rifle on them and Shorty leaning over her like a bull in heat.

He groped her and she kneed him. He fell back and eyed her in surprise. "Well, now,
ain't
you a little spitfire? How lucky can I
git
?"

"You touch me, and my brothers will be on you
faster'n
you can crack a whip. The last time you crossed my brothers, you ended up with a scar the size of Texas. This time you ain't gonna be so lucky."

Shorty released her, his hand flying to his cheek. "You're not—"

"My name's Prescott," she said, enjoying the look of horÂror and disbelief on his face. "Sarah Prescott."

He couldn't have jumped back faster had he stumbled upon a nest of rattlers. "Come on, Pete. Let's get
outta
here. With that, he ran toward his horse.

Pete responded with a curse and then raced after his brother, his spurs jingling like silver coins in a gambler's hand. The two men mounted their horses and took off running.

Sarah laughed. "Would you look at
that!
They ain't got enough guts to hang on a—" Upon seeing the preacher's horrified face, she broke off in midsentence. "Don't tell
me . . . a
lady ain't supposed to mention body parts." Proud to have fig
ured that out for herself, she gave her head a triumphant toss. "Ain't that so?"

"Uh
. . .
no
. I mean yes." He grimaced and rubbed the side of his head.

Alarmed, she scooted to his side, her cuffed hands held in front. "Looks like you got yourself a bruiser," she said. "At the rate you're
goin
', you ain't
gonna
make it to Texas with or without me."

He brushed away her concern. "Did I hear you right? Did he say you were a . . . Prescott?"

She bit her lip. "I reckon
there ain't nothin' wrong with your ears
."

He groaned but whether from pain or something else, she couldn't tell. "This is worse than I thought," he said.

"I guess you heard about us," she said.

He sat up and shook his head as if warding off a dizzy spell. "I heard that they killed a Wells Fargo passenger."

"My brothers ain't killed no one," she stormed, "and don't say they did."

He looked at her long and hard, his thoughts hidden behind his dark expression. Finally, he pulled the key from his pocket and took off her handcuffs and heaved them away.

"Handcuffs make you too vulnerable," he explained. "If there's a problem, you can't defend yourself."

She laughed. "I defended myself jus' fine
ag'inst
the Mitchell brothers."

"You might not be so lucky next time."

She boldly met his eyes. "Ain't you '
fraid
I'll get away?"

The question seemed to put him in an even more solemn mood than before, and he continued to watch her with dark, probing eyes that were maddening in their ability to hide his thoughts.

"You and I both know that if you've got a mind to escape, I can't stop you."

"You're
gonna
let me go, just like that? After you promÂised Owen?"

The muscle at his jaw tightened. "I had no right making promises I can't keep."

Hands on her waist, she glared at him. "What happened to your big plans to save me?"

"I'm no longer certain that's possible."

"'
Cuz
I'm a Prescott?" she asked.

"I doubt that even the best lawyers in Boston could save a Prescott. All I ask is that you go during the daylight hours. I don't want to have to haul you out of trouble again."

Annoyed that he could so easily discount her, she clenched her hands tight against her side.
"Out there ain't nothin' but prairie.
Not much protection
ag'inst
Indians or outlaws."

"I thought that most of the Indian problems had been resolved, now that they're living on reservations."

"The only ones
livin
' on reservations are the harmless ones," she said.
"The ones
willin
' to give up their freedom.
It's the renegades you best worry about."

"Sarah
Prescott
." He grimaced as if it pained him to acknowledge her full identity. "Are you saying you're afraid?"

She drew back in surprise. "Me?" she sputtered. Fear was for chickens, not the likes of her. "You're the one who sends up smoke signals wherever we go."

"At least I'm not impulsive like you."

"I don't think—"

"That's the problem, Sarah. You don't think. You do the first thing that crosses your mind and never give a thought to the consequences."

She glared at him. "I suppose you want me to be like you and chew o'er every idea until it ain't worth fodder."

He frowned. "Maybe if you'd do a bit more 'chewing' as you call it, you wouldn't be in so much trouble."

"And maybe if you'd do less
chewin
', you wouldn't be wound tighter than a banjo string!"

He pulled back in surprise.
"Banjo string?"
He stared at her.
"Banjo string?"

He threw up his hands and stalked away, then stopped. He glanced back over his shoulder. "Banjo string?" he mouthed. Shaking his head, he kept walking.

Sarah seethed for the rest of the day. She was annoyed at herself for letting those scalawags sneak up on them. Sleeping by a stream with little protection was plumb asking for trouble, and she blamed the preacher for her carelessness. Crazy as it sounded, he made her feel safe. So safe, in fact, she had almost believed he could save her from the gallows.

It was more than crazy. It was insane. The man didn't even own a gun, and he probably
ain't never
made a fist in his life. If he ever got in a fight, he'd no doubt turn it into a prayer
meetin
'. Why, she'd be safer in a den full of grizzlies than in the company of
Reverend
Justin Wells. Trusting him had been a mistake, that's for sure, and it wouldn't happen again.