Bride's Flight from Virginia City, Montana (31 page)

King’s heart began to thump rapidly in his chest. His office might look undisturbed, but someone had obviously been in here. The Colt was always loaded and the box of extra cartridges was always in the same drawer with it. He remembered looking at the gun and the box Saturday afternoon. Something was wrong.

“Looking for these, Billy?”

King whirled around and met the flat stare of Matt Parker. He was holding six bullets in one palm and a box of cartridges in another. King began to sputter.

“Matt—what—why did you take the bullets? Who let you in here? Give them back—”

“Well, Billy, I normally don’t give a loaded gun to a wanted felon.”

“What are you talking about? Have you gone loco? I’m an attorney.”

“So I’ll just keep ahold of these a little bit longer, until Judge Skinner decides what to do with them. And with you.”

“You’re out of your mind. I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m not about to subject myself to some sort of frontier justice you’ve cooked up with that old fool Skinner. What is this all about?”

Zeph stepped into the room. “It’s all about two Amish kids named Troyer and Kauffman, Mister King, and a man named Seraphim Raber who was hunting them down because they’d seen his face.”

“Zephaniah! I didn’t know you were … Welcome back. I was expecting you next week.”

“Expecting me? Why, I didn’t tell anyone but Matt when I was coming in.”

“And I didn’t tell anyone else,” said Matt.

King looked from one of them to the other. Suddenly he yelled and charged at them like a bull. King was a big man and he bowled them over. Then he raced down the short hall for the back door of his office, threw the latch, and jumped outside, prepared to jump on the horse he’d hitched there and ride it bareback out of town. Colonel Austen stood between him and his mount.

“Mister King?” he said. “I am Marshal Michael James Austen out of Cheyenne, Wyoming. I am afraid I must detain you, sir. The charge is, I believe, accessory to murder and accessory to attempted murder.”

King stared at the man in black. He glanced to his right.

Matt’s deputy, Luke, came out from behind a nearby building, and he was holding a coach gun, a shotgun with two short barrels that was often used by Wells Fargo guards. He pointed the weapon at King. “I’m guessing you know what this can do at close range, sir.”

Matt and Zeph rushed out the back door and then stopped. Austen strolled up to King and put his face right up to the lawyer’s. “Mister King, you endangered friends of mine. You endangered women. You endangered children. I have little use or patience for men such as yourself, masquerading as a champion of justice by day and doing the deeds of darkness by night.”

He pulled out handcuffs and locked them on King’s wrists. “I arrest you as an accessory to the crimes of the Angel Raber Gang. You will be accompanying me to the jailhouse in Cheyenne.”

“You can’t do that!” protested King. “You’re way out of your jurisdiction. I’m staying right here.”

“For this transfer, I have a court order meant to prevent two possibilities from occurring. One, that your two brothers attempt to release you from jail in Iron Springs unlawfully.”

“Leave them out of this. They don’t know anything about Raber. They were never part of any of it.”

“And two, that a lynch mob might storm the jail and hang you by the neck for assisting one of the most notorious and blackhearted gangs that has ever crossed the Missouri River.”

King went silent as he turned this bit of information over in his mind. Zeph walked up to him.

“Was it the money, Billy?” he asked. “Tell me there was a better reason than the money.”

King could not meet Zeph’s gaze. He dropped his eyes and studied the dirt under his feet. “How’d you know? Did Raber tell you before he died?”

“The clerk in Omaha recalled you sending the Revelation telegram to me in Pennsylvania.”

King snorted. “You’ll never be able to prove I did anything else. You don’t have any of the telegrams I sent Raber.”

“The clerk here talked.”

“No.”

“Yes. He did. He’ll say whatever he needs to say to save his own neck.”

King looked up and pleaded with Zeph. “You have to understand, the Rabers and Kings go back a long way.”

“I know that. The Kings in Lancaster County told me all about it. What I don’t understand is how some old friendship turned you into a criminal.”

“The Kings owed the Rabers. It’s as simple as that. When my great-grandfather left the church seventy or eighty years ago, it was some of the Rabers who made sure my family had land and livestock and a roof over their heads. They saved us. When a telegram came for me demanding I return the favor, I couldn’t refuse. I am a man of honor.”

“Of honor!” Zeph was seething. “Helping Raber’s cutthroats is your idea of honor? Helping them track us down so they could murder those children? Shoot Miss Spence? Shoot me?”

“It–it’s complicated.”

“No, it’s simple. It wasn’t just returning the favor. It was filling your pockets with gold, too, wasn’t it? Your practice was a lot more lucrative in the gold rush days. This was a good opportunity to make up for the shortfall.”

“I didn’t take much.”

“The clerk says you paid him ten thousand in gold. I’m thinking if you paid him ten thousand, well, you must have kept a whole lot more to yourself to live on.”

King looked down again. “Just remember, my brothers didn’t do anything.”

“I guess we’ll ask them for ourselves. Meanwhile, you’ve got a stage to catch.”

They took him down the lane behind the buildings where the stage was waiting. It was empty. The driver saw King and spat down into the dust.

“We told the passengers there’d be another stage along in a few hours,” he said.

“Thank you kindly,” responded Austen, pushing King into the stage ahead of him.

Zeph stood at the window. “Charlotte Spence has another name, Mister King, and it’s Raber.”

King looked at him in astonishment.

“She talked with Raber before he died. A brother and sister heart-to-heart. I thought you might like to know he apologized for all the wrong he’d done. I guess the better word is repented. You recall that word from church, don’t you, Mister King?”

“I don’t believe it,” King growled. “A killer like Raber wouldn’t turn unless there was money in it.”

“Well, there was God in it, I know that for sure, and love for his sister, too. He had to fight off what was left of his gang in order to save her life. They took exception to her preaching. It shamed him, but didn’t sit well with the others.”

“Raber would never turn, I tell you.”

“But I was there that day, Mister King, and I tell you he did. I guess you’ve got the same choice to make as he did, heaven or hell. I hope you make it before the trapdoor springs.”

“They’ll never hang me.”

“Well, now, don’t you bet your life on it.”

Zeph stepped back and looked up at the driver. The man nodded and flicked his reins.

“Hey yup, hey yup,” he cried.

Austen leaned forward in his seat and touched the brim of his black hat. “My regards to Miss Raber. I will see her again at your wedding. It will be an honor to stand for you, Captain Parker.”

“And an honor for me as well, Colonel Austen.”

The stage rolled down the street, kicking up dust. Then it was gone. Matt was at Zeph’s side.

“You still a deputy marshal?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Well, let me know when you do know.”

They walked back down Main Street with Luke. Their horses were tied off in front of the law office. All three of them swung up into their saddles.

“Luke and I need to pay a visit to the Kings,” Matt said.

“You think there’ll be trouble?” asked Zeph.

“I think they’ll be as surprised and upset as we were. Don’t know how they’ll feel about it down the road.”

“Will they hang Billy in Cheyenne, brother?”

“With his connections to the Raber Gang? I believe Wyoming might.”

“None of this feels good to me. We were all best friends.”

“I know it. Jude said something about it the other night, quoting the Bible, of course. Zechariah, I think it was: ‘These are the wounds I received at the house of my friends.’”

Luke and Matt rode off, and Zeph turned his horse toward the trail north that led to the Sweet Blue. The town was waking up and wagons went rattling past. People crossed the street in front of him and behind him. He didn’t pay any of the hustle and bustle any mind. He was thinking about how much a life can change not only from one year to the next, or one month, but one moment to another. And how you hardly ever saw it coming.

Chapter 35

I
t was the middle of June and warm as a wood fire, Lynndae thought. She coaxed Daybreak along the ridge and looked at the mountains that seemed purple in the distance. A few still had snow, but most had sent it down by way of creeks and streams and rivers to water the valleys and pastures below. “Heartland,” she murmured. “Why, hello,” came a cheerful voice.

Lynndae smiled as Zeph cantered toward her on Cricket from across a small stretch of meadow. He touched his hat brim.

“Hey there, palomino.”

“I’m never sure if you’re talking to my horse or you’re talking to me,” she teased.

“Maybe both.”

“Which is it?”

“I think you know.”

“Hm.” She glanced around her at the vista that surrounded them on all sides. “I had my head down most of the way up watching her steps. My goodness, this land gets more beautiful as each day goes by.”

“This land. And some of its inhabitants.”

Lynndae smiled over at him. “Always gallant.”

“And always truthful.”

Lynndae looked at her man, at the tan the western sun had already fashioned over the skin of his face and hands, at his brown eyes and hair, at his smile and rugged good looks, at the kindness as well as the strength that was there, and felt an enormous surge of gratitude toward God for the entire journey from the Montana Territory to Pennsylvania and back again. It had been fraught with danger, but the outcome had been blessing upon blessing. She needed to know if he felt the same way.

“Z?”

“Hm?” He was looking at the sun as it moved closer to the tops of the peaks.

“Was it worth it?”

“Was what worth it?”

“The trip, the journey, the whole thing we’ve been part of since February.”

“What sort of crazy question is that?”

“My crazy question. If you had to, would you do it all over again?”

Zeph moved his eyes from the sun to her. “Let me see. You’re in new denim pants, Levi Strauss, like mine, and a long-sleeved cotton shirt in pale white. You’ve got a black-and-white pattern bandana around your neck and your silver earrings are catching the sunlight. Your golden hair is pulled back and braided and dropping like a glittering rope down your back. Your Stetson is as new as your pants and black as midnight, and it ties together all your handsome whites and darks and golds at one beautiful summit.”

Lynndae felt the heat in her face. “Z, please stop. A woman can only take so much of your chivalry in one go.”

“Then there are your eyes. A man could live forever just gazing into that blue.”

“Are you finished playing Romeo?” she asked. “When are you going to answer my question?”

Zeph smiled. “Was it worth it? Bess and Samuel are alive, so is the village of Bird in Hand, so are you. Your brother’s in heaven, which he had small chance of getting into before, and the Raber Gang isn’t around to terrorize innocent folk anymore. Colonel Austen and I met up again. I made a hundred new friends in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. We discovered Black Jack gum.”

She waited for him to continue. “So, is that it?”

“Our ranch’ll be the biggest spread in southeastern Montana once we buy that little strip that separates Two Back from Sweet Blue. Your brother Ricky’d like that.”

Lynndae felt an impatience stirring inside her. But she was also pretty sure he was toying with her. He laughed.

“What’s so funny?” she demanded.

“You are. Because you think I’m done.”

“Aren’t you?”

“Not by a long shot.”

He brought Cricket closer so that they were only inches from each other. “We finally got our sunset ride,” he said.

“We did.”

“Took a long time to get here.” “It seems that way, doesn’t it?”

“Trains and stages and walking on foot. Might have saved ourselves the trouble by just staying put.”

He reached out a hand and ran it gently down one side of her face. “Except if I hadn’t made the journey, I wouldn’t have gotten to know you half so well. Wouldn’t have seen all your courage and tenderness and charm. Truth is, before we left Iron Springs, I thought I knew you pretty well. But I didn’t know you at all. There’s a difference between looking at a stretch of heartland from a distance, thinking it’s fine, and riding through that same country for a week and seeing every well and spring and blackberry bush, and knowing for a fact it’s fine.”

He leaned over and surprised her with a soft kiss on her lips. Then he kept his face near. “Well, I guess you could say God took me on a ride through a heartland till I got to see every stone, every flower, every ribbon of fresh water, every green place, and once I made that ride, I understood what He meant when He said He made that land and called it good, very good.”

Lynndae felt a flush rising to her cheeks. How was he always able to do that to her? He kissed her again, and she wished he would never pull away, never stop. Then he was cradling her head against his chest, and she could hear the beating of his heart.

“Was it worth it? I fell in love with the most beautiful woman God has ever placed upon this earth, a lady who outshines Esther or Cleopatra or Helen of Troy. But what’s even more astonishing is that this woman fell in love with me and said she’d be my wife. Do you know how long we’d been gone when she said yes? Maybe two weeks. Do you think she would have promised to marry me after just two more weeks of living in Iron Springs and neither of us setting a foot outside the Sweet Blue or Two Back Valley? If I’d come to your door with roses and daisies and chocolates and kisses and said, ‘Miss Spence, will you marry me, it’s been two weeks,’ would you have thrown your arms around me and cried, ‘Oh yes, oh yes, marry me, Z, it’s been two whole weeks of courtship, and we’ve scarcely seen each other in all that time?’”