Cole's Redemption (Love Amongst the Pines) (5 page)

             
"I saw it, too," Natty said. "I don't know how to describe it, but he was ready to walk up those steps to the gallows, brave- like, not
pissin
' himself like most anybody else would."

             
Judge shook his head. "In all my years of being a judge, I've never had anybody thank me for a hanging sentence. I knew then that there was more to him than we could fathom. Something's eating away at his insides. Whether or not you can heal him, only God knows. I hope for both your sakes, you can, Natalie. I surely do."

             
"Hey, Judge," Sheriff Watkins called out. "We're ready to get started."

             
When the two of the entered the room once more, Natty gasped at the sight before her.
The gunslinger sat, barely conscious, his face pale, his
breaths
coming in fast, shallow puffs.

             
"Let's get this over with," Doc said quietly.

             
All of the men circled around the table, each one removing their hat in reverence to the occasion. Only the groom sat, no longer tied to the chair, his wrapped hands still resting on the table. The bloodied bandages looked black in the dim light of a single oil lamp.

             
"We are gathered here," Preacher began, "to witness the joining of this convict, uh, man and this woman into the sacred bonds holy matrimony. It is on such occasions that we must all pause to remember..."

             
The judge stepped forward. "Make it brief, Gus, before the groom becomes too lucid."

             
"Um, well, of course. Do you Natalie Lane take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband? To love, honor, and obey for all time until death do you part?"

             
"Or at least until the spring thaw next year," Doc muttered beside him.
             

             
A quick elbow from Sheriff Watkins silenced him.

             
"I do," Natty stated quietly, not able to take her eyes from the pitiful figure that was about to be her husband. Guilt slithered through he mind.
             

             
Maybe he would have been better off dead than forced to work in a mine and be saddled with a wife and her simple relation.

             
"Do you, Cole
Remmington
, also take this woman, to love, honor, and cherish for all time until death do you part?"

             
A silence spread across the room, each person looking to the other.

             
"Well, who's speaking for him?" Preacher asked. All eyes looked to Judge Cummings.

             
"I guess that'll be me." He walked over to kneel beside
Remmington's
chair.

             
Gently he tilted the man's head back and spoke in low tones. "Son, I swear I don't know what road brought you here. Hell, I don't know if what we're doing is entirely legal or even morally right. But it's a chance I'm giving you, and I pray to God you don't throw it away."

             
The gunslinger's eyes fluttered open. For a moment, a brief bit of clarity passed between them.

             
"Help me," Cole whispered.

             
"That's what I intend." He turned to the others gathered, and nodded. "He just said 'I do'. Let's get on with it." The preacher nodded and read from his book. "By the laws of the great state of South Dakota, I now pronounce you man and wife. May God bless and keep you."

             
A collective sigh went around the room.

             
"I forgot Uncle Dermott!" Natty said as they walked out of the jail. The gunslinger had passed out cold when they'd begun to move him out to the wagon.

             
"Forgot what, honey?" Dermott said from his seat on the bench outside the jail looking questioningly at the prisoner's hands. "What happened to him?"

             
"We did,
Derm
. We're taking him home. He belongs to us now."

             
"What do you mean? I've never laid eyes on him. I know I'd remember. I may forget what day of the week it is, but I never forget people."

             
"I know that,
Derm
. This is different. He and I were just married. He's a condemned man, and I married him so that he could help us work the mine."

             
"It's
gonna
be mighty hard to do any work with those hands. What'd he do, get '
em
caught under a wagon?"

             
"They broke his hands so he wouldn't be able to use a gun," she told him as she watched the men struggling to lift her new husband onto the back of the buckboard.

             
"He won't be able to use a fork much either, I reckon." "No. I hadn't thought of that."

             
"There you go, Natty. I hope things go well for you," Judge sighed. "Doc and Preacher will be out to check on you Sunday afternoon. Just send Dermott into town if you need anything. I know he won't remember your message, but we'll come out just the same." He tipped his hat and started to go back in the jailhouse.  At the last minute, he turned around. "Oh, and congratulations on your wedding."

             
"Wedding, did he say wedding? Who got married, Plum?"

             
Natty sighed as she climbed onto the front seat of the wagon. Reaching down, she helped settle her uncle beside her. "I did,
Derm
."

             
"You did? I didn't go, did I? Was it at a church? I don't remember giving you away. How long have you been married?"

             
His questions rattled on over the sound of the wagon trundling across the road towards the wilderness. Natty only hoped she'd made the right decision.

             
Cole dreamed of home.

             
Not the ragged encampments he'd kept over the last two years. But the real, honest-to-goodness place where he'd grown up. It was his mother's house, a red brick mansion built beside a small lake just outside of Boston.
             
He remembered all of the times he'd awakened to the smell of apple pancakes. Back to the time when he drank his fill of milk and ate sugared treats until his stomach was full to bursting.

             
He remembered his mother's soft kisses and his father's firm hand as they'd helped him learn his letters and numbers. Lost in his dreams, he thought about the time he'd come home from his first semester in England. They'd been so proud of him.

             
That was before the beautiful little maid, Maggie, with her red hair and green eyes. Never would he forget the gentle way she took his arm and sidled up to him. Again and again, his thoughts went back to the dreamy expression she wore whenever he'd leaned down to kiss her.  Unfortunately, his memory of seeing his parent's shrinking away in horror and disdain when he'd first told them of his love for her returned to him as well.

             
Then his sleepy mind took him to another place and time, when he held his dying wife and child in the midst of a desolate Illinois prairie.

             
"No!" He shouted out into the darkness. He jerked forward, and then gasped from the excruciating pain in his hands.

             
"Easy," a soft voice said beside him. Gently pushing him back, a woman hovered over him. Well, at least he thought she was a woman. Truth be told, she looked more like a half-grown boy.

             
"Where am I?" He asked, as she gently wiped a damp cloth across his forehead.

             
"You're at the Denton Lane Silver Mine."

             
He squinted, looking around the darkened area. It was a cluttered, single room cabin with dirt floors. Sparse slivers of evening light slipped through the broken windows, which were shaded by boards nailed unevenly into place.

             
"You live here?" He carefully surveyed the mess.

             
"Yes. And now, so do you," she said.

             
He laid his head back on the pillow and waited for his addled brain to settle. He was lying on a narrow cot.  While it wasn't as big as the feather bed he'd grown up on, it was a far sight better than the one in the jailhouse.

             
On the other side of the room, a bulky figure lay on a similar bed, snoring.

             
"That's my Uncle Dermott. He's as sweet as the day is long, but, in the last few years, his mind's been slipping. He's got a bad case or rheumatism, too, so he can't handle a lick of work. But he's got a big heart and is good company." She sighed as she dipped the cloth in a pan of water beside the bed.

             
"What's your name?"

             
"I'm Natalie Lane, but you can call me Natty. Everybody does. I own this cabin, a shed out back where the mares are and the mine. It's really only a hole in the ground, right now. Took my Pa and Uncle
Derm
nearly two years to dig it."

             
"How'd I get here?"

             
"You were about to be hung when I bought off your sentence with my Ma's wedding ring. Then, you and I got married."

             
He sat up again, jolting his injured hands. Gasping at the new onslaught of pain, he nearly passed out again.

             
"Here, here! It's not as bad as all that! Be careful or you'll hurt yourself more!"

             
"Married?" He managed to speak when the throbbing in his hands settled down again. "How could I get married? I was supposed to be hung!"

             
"I guess that's my fault. I told them that I needed the extra help here, and it's the best we could come up with at the time."

             
"I can't get married again."

             
"Are you already married?"

             
Cole noted the slight tremble in her voice. "I'm widowed." Carefully, he raised his hands, and inspected the bloodstained bandages. "They did this to me?"

             
"I'm awful sorry. Judge and Sheriff Watkins just wanted to make sure that you'd not be able to shoot me once I got you home. I wouldn't have let them if I'd have known what they meant to do."

             
"I guess I'll never play the piano again. Another item on the long list of my mother's disappointments."

             
"You got family somewhere?"

             
"No. My parents are dead." Cole didn't know why he lied. Or, perhaps it wasn't a lie after all, he reasoned. Though she still breathed, his mother, like everything in his life before Maggie, was gone.

             
"Oh. I'm sorry to hear that."  She looked downward a moment. "My Pa died last year, and my Ma passed only a week ago. I sure do miss '
em
."

             
"What do you want from me?'

             
"I want you to help me work the mine. After all that hard work, we never found anything but dirt. My Pa used to be a gambler back in San Francisco. After won the deed to this place in a poker game, he moved my ma and me out here.  I swear, they put their whole lives out here but we
ain't
seen one dime from it."

             
"Maybe, there's no silver here."

             
"
Naw
, my Pa wouldn't be unlucky enough to get a dry claim. He could win at cards like he was charmed. Ma used to say he was the luckiest man alive. She was a dancehall girl before they met. When I was little, I used to watch her dress up in fine clothes and serve gentlemen drinks on a fancy silver tray. She would tip her feathered hat and curtsey real pretty. When they had enough money, Pa and Ma gathered me up, and we came out here to live."

             
Her smile faded then, her thoughts obviously going to some distant memory.

             
"How old are you?"

             
"Eighteen. I was seven when we left San Francisco."

             
"That means you've been out here for eleven years. In all

this
time, you've had no luck with the mine?"

             
By the way she flinched, he could tell his words stung.  To her credit, she recovered quickly.  A second later she looked him straight in the eyes and gave him a stern expression.