Firefly (53 page)

"Don't be ridiculous, Mama.  You had nothing to do with it.  First it was your arm and then it was Willy's cut, and you couldn't have caused that."

"No, I didn't, but who told you to pull that poor man onto the porch and fix him some breakfast?  And who kept sending you to find him for my medicine?  Who begged Wilhelm to let you go work for him?  Who invited the doctor for lunch?"

Katharine paused, as though to let these thoughts sink in and stir other memories of other instances, but when she began to continue, the sound of Wilhelm's heavy clomping tread on the stairs kept her silent.  Julie held her breath, and her astonishment.

Wilhelm did not knock, but the slice of light under the door indicated he carried a lamp or lantern and had only one hand to slip the bolt.  Two seconds, maybe three, were all Julie had.  A gesture from her had Katharine scrambling to sprawl exhausted on the bed, while Julie returned to the window to stare stoically at the desert night.

"She's asleep," she whispered to Wilhelm when the door opened.  She did not turn to look at him.

"Good.  Let her sleep."  He muttered, "Clumsy woman," as he backed out the door again and would have locked Julie in for the night if she hadn't stopped him.

"What about me, Papa?"

"You?"

"Yes.  Where am I to sleep?"

Now she turned, slowly pivoting on the balls of her feet until her eyes met the almost blinding light of the lamp.  He held it off slightly to one side to avoid the worst of the glare himself, and in so doing gave Julie a clear view over his shoulder to the man behind him.  Hans squinted against the flame, but nothing could hide the naked emotion that manifested in a flaring of broad nostrils and furtive lick of his lips.

Wilhelm ground out a guttural order in German that sent Hans into another room.

"You can sleep on the floor, like the bitch that you are," Wilhelm then said coldly to Julie.

She said nothing, displayed no reaction at all.  When Hans returned and threw a heavy quilt at her, she did not bend to pick it up.  She lifted her chin a trifle higher and turned back to the window.

Let them leave,
she prayed silently.  And for once her prayer was answered.  With a curse that needed no translation, Wilhelm slammed the door shut.  He did not forget the bolt; Julie jumped when it slid home.

Only when the two men's voices settled in the parlor did Katharine move.  She sat up and propped her back against the wall and Julie's thin pillow.

"That was clever, dear.  I would never have thought about the sleeping arrangements.  The quilt will be quieter and easier to handle than the mattress."

"Now what are you talking about?"

"Why, getting out of this house, of course.  You have to escape somehow, you know."

"I hadn't really thought about it."

"Well, I have." Katharine tossed the sheet back and as she swung her feet to the floor began to pull the bed clothes free.  "You can't just jump out the window, and you have nothing to anchor a rope to.  But with a little luck, I ought to be able to hold these sheets long enough for you to reach the ground.  I had thought to throw the mattress out first in case you fell, but--"

"No, Mama," Julie interrupted quietly.  She faced her mother in the almost impenetrable darkness and put all her determination into her voice.  "I'm not leaving this room."

"Good heavens, why not?"

"Because I think it's exactly what Papa wants."

*   *   *

Having slept much of the afternoon, Morgan found himself wide awake long after Ted returned to his private quarters adjacent to the marshal's office.  He had wished his prisoner a good night and good luck, after once again expressing regrets over the situation.  Morgan had shrugged and muttered some casual response, though he felt far from casual.

Ted had left a lantern lit in the corridor separating the cells from the office, so Morgan had plenty of light for the reading he intended to do now that he was rested.  Leo Wood's books were stacked neatly under the bunk, but Del didn't reach for them.  He lay quietly, not terribly uncomfortable, with his fingers laced together behind his head while he contemplated the one question for which all the legal treatises in the world had no answer.

Should he deny his love for Julie and hers for him by pleading innocent to the charge? To do so he would have to risk the shame and humiliation the whole town would heap on her if he admitted the truth, that she had come to him willingly.  He could not do that to her, even though the only alternative was to admit his own guilt.

Damn Hollstrom to hell!
he thought viciously as he pulled off one boot and let it clunk to the floor. 
Why is he so willing to let Julie marry that bastard Wallenmund and even more willing to brand me a rapist?  What the hell makes Hans a suitable son-in-law but not me?

Then, quietly aloud, he voiced another perplexing but strangely significant query.

"And why is Hans still playing the role of fiancé if he considers Julie the 'damaged goods' her father called her?"

Think, think, think!
he ordered himself. 
There's got to be an answer here somewhere!

He kicked off the other boot and readjusted the lumpy pillow beneath his knuckles.  And then he began talking.

"Come on, Amy, help me out," he pleaded, staring at the mottled ceiling and yet seeing only her face framed by the auburn curls.  "Why would a man want his daughter to marry a dirt-poor farmer when she could have a relatively respectable and at least financially solvent physician?  He's got to know Julie would tell him the truth about us, so how can he expect Hans to accept her?  And why would Hans be willing to go ahead with it?  None of it makes sense at all."

He could hear the noise from the Castle and ruefully supposed he was once again the object of speculative conversation.  Odd, wasn't it? that since the day Julie Hollstrom came to get him to sew her brother's forehead, he not only hadn't been in the saloon but hadn't even thought much about it.  And there was still that bottle of scotch in the pantry, which he had uncorked that morning Julie found him on the roof.  He had never gone near it again.  He didn't miss it at all.

Even tonight, alone in this bare little cell, securely locked away from any possible chance of being with Julie, he felt no craving for liquor.  All he wanted was her.

He rolled onto his side and reached under the bunk for one of Leo's books.  Medical texts were dull, but they couldn't hold a candle to these volumes of precedents and statutes and court cases.  Maybe half an hour's reading would put him to sleep.  He could use it.

He cocked one knee and propped the heavy tome on his thigh.  Leo had stuck several bits of paper amongst the pages, but they marked nothing of interest to Morgan.  As he flipped through the book, he shifted slightly onto his side, to put the light more directly on the page.

A clatter on the adobe floor startled him, but he immediately recognized the sound.  He set the book down and leaned over the edge of the bunk to search for the nickel or whatever coin it was that had fallen from his pocket.

He couldn't see it at first, in the shadow under the narrow bed, and almost gave up.  A nickel or even a half dollar wasn't worth hanging upside down for.  But as though the rush of blood to his head had increased his powers of reasoning, he suddenly had the key to the whole puzzle.  In retrospect, he wondered why he hadn't seen it sooner; it was so absurdly simple.

Some men would do anything for money.

Chapter Twenty-nine

The spacious, oak-paneled ballroom of the Olympia House had never overflowed with people the way it did the morning of the second day of August.  Some grumbled that the Castle had always had plenty of room for trials before, but others reminded them that Judge Booth was a noted temperance man who refused to hold court in a saloon.  This sat quite well with the die-hard drinkers, who didn't have to give up their liquor while the trial went on.  The judge had no jurisdiction over the consumption of alcohol outside his courtroom.

His Honor wasted little time selecting a jury; the twelve good men and true were seated before nine-thirty.  Then Ted Phillips brought Morgan over from the jail and read the charges.

Or came close to it.

"Yer Honor, Mr. Wilhelm Hollstrom charges that Mr. Morgan did seduce his daughter and--"

"Whose daughter, Mr. Phillips?" the judge asked.  "Mr. Hollstrom's or Mr. Morgan's?"

"Oh, Mr. Hollstrom's, sir.  Miss Julie.  She works for Del.  Mr. Morgan, that is.  Er, Dr. Morgan.  Yer Honor."

"Proceed, Mr. Phillips."

Del sat quietly, not listening to Ted's confused rendition.  Instead, he scanned the crowd for some sight of Julie.  Her father, the bastard, was there, of course, and the sadistic Wallenmund, right in the front row.  But there was no sign of Julie, her mother, or Willy.

He turned his attention then to the jury, the twelve men seated on painted gilt chairs in a make-shift jury box to the judge's left, at the front of the ballroom.  Six of them, including Ard Hammond, the foreman, were friends or neighbors or at least acquaintances from Morgan's early days in Plato.  The other six were newcomers to town, men who had known him mostly as a drunken bum and who probably still weren't sure of his reputation.  Something in the way Ard Hammond lounged on his chair assured Del he could count on at least one vote of not guilty, regardless what evidence was presented, but he warned himself not to count on eleven others as loyal as the mortician.

"I said, Mr. Morgan, how do you plead?"

The judge's voice, as stern as his white-bearded visage, cut into Morgan's thoughts.

"Not guilty, Your Honor."

"Very well.  Mr. Hollstrom, you may present your case."

"No, wait," Morgan interrupted, getting to his feet.  He wished he had listened to Ted's advice to have Winnie bring him some decent clothes, but Morgan had been more concerned with an early morning conference with Simon McCrory.  "I have a request to make, Your Honor."

Booth looked down a long, hooked nose at the accused.

"A request?  For what?"

"I wish to be confronted by my accuser.  Surely no one in this courtroom is going to believe that the crimes I'm accused of were perpetrated against Mr. Hollstrom himself."

There were some snickers from the crowd and a few quiet groans of disgust that he should even suggest such a thing.

"No!" Wilhelm protested, coming to his feet, too.  "I have made the charges, so now he must answer to me."

Morgan held his temper in check, but only barely.  His fingers itched to curl around the man's throat and stop his vilifications once and for all.  But that would not do Julie any good.

"A crime, Your Honor, must have a victim.  If Mr. Hollstrom is not the victim, then I say he must produce one or there is no crime."

Now the agreement from the crowd was more enthusiastic, forcing the judge to pound his ivory gavel and call for order.  He tugged at his beard a moment and trained his bright black eyes first on one man, then the other.

"Is Miss Hollstrom physically or mentally incapacitated as a result of this attack?" he asked.