Rose's Mail Order Husband - A Historical Mail Order Bride Story (Montana Brides) (5 page)

“As far as I know,” Violet replied, “he’s up in the Fort House with the other men. He should be getting ready for the wedding.”

“He should be,” Sheriff Maitland returned, “but he isn’t. I just went up to the Fort House to look for him there, and there’s no one there. That’s why I came down here.”

All three women gasped in astonishment.
“No one there? Where are they?”

“That’s what I want to know,” Sheriff Maitland replied.

“But they should be up there getting ready for the wedding,” Violet cried. “What can have gone wrong, if they aren’t there?”

“We have to find Jake Hamilton,” the Sheriff declared. “He’s under arrest for murder.” He turned to Rose. “You don’t know where he is, do you, young lady?”

Rose stared at him, then at her sisters. “I don’t know where he is.”

“Where was the last place you saw him?” the Sheriff asked.

Rose staring in distracted confusion from one face to another.

“If you know where he is, Rose,” Iris put in, “you should tell the Sheriff now. You don’t want to be held responsible for protecting an accused killer.”

“I really don’t know where he is,” Rose wailed. “I just left him up at the Bird House.”

Iris scoffed in scorn, but Rose interrupted her.

“I didn’t intend to meet him there,” she insisted. “You have to believe me. I just went out for a walk, and I wound up in the garden up there. Then I went sat on the window seat inside.” She turned back to the Sheriff. “I’m going to live there after the wedding, you understand. I was just thinking about what it’s going to be like. I didn’t know he would show up there, too.”

“But he did show up,” Sheriff Maitland prompted.

“We were just talking there,” Rose told him. “Then we left. I came back here, and he went back to the Fort House. We agreed we would meet again in front of the minister. We were both going to get dressed for the wedding. That’s the last time I saw him. I swear it!”

“I sure hope you’re telling me the truth,” Sheriff Maitland growled, “
because if I find out you’re protecting him, I could charge you with accessory to the murder. You’re already under suspicion of planning it in advance to get Cornell’s house.”

“We didn’t plan it in advance!” Rose shrieked. “Everyone keeps saying that, but we didn’t. I could show you all the letters we exchanged in arranging our marriage to prove it to you.”

Sheriff Maitland nodded. “You might want to hold onto those as evidence.”

She opened her mouth, but only an inarticulate squeak came out. She wrung her fingers together, and she would have run for her life if she could have moved her legs at all.

“If he isn’t in the Fort House,” Violet put in, “then where is he?”

“And where are Chuck and Mick?” Iris added. “If they aren’t getting ready for the wedding, where are they? The minister will be here soon, and they won’t be ready.”

“Neither will we, if this keeps up,” Violet pointed out.

The front door opened behind the sheriff, and Chuck Ahern and Mick McAllister entered the house. Their eyes widened when they spotted the sheriff.

“Mornin’, Sheriff,” Chuck began. “What can we do for you this mornin’?”

“As I was just explaining to the ladies here,” Sheriff Maitland replied, “I’m here to place Jake Hamilton under arrest for the murder of Cornell Pollard. You
wouldn’t happen to know where he is, would you? You or Mr. McAllister here?”

“I don’t know where he is,” Mick replied, “but he just rode off. He just got his horse out of the barn and rode away, not five minutes ago.”

Sheriff Maitland whirled around. “What?”

“He’s gone,” Mick repeated. “He just left.”

“Which way did he go?” the Sheriff bellowed.

Mick jerked his thumb across the range toward the west. “Up the canyon. I don’t know where he was going, but he was galloping pretty hard by the time he cleared the fence. I thought at the time he was headed up to the range to check on something about our herd. I didn’t think much of it. I just thought he wanted to get out for a ride before the wedding.”

A sob broke out of Rose’s mouth. “He can’t be! He can’t have run off, not when we’re about to get married!”

No one listened to her.

“You men,” Sheriff Maitland waved his hand to include Chuck and Mick, “I’m deputizing you two to come with me and bring him back. He can’t have gone far in a just a few minutes, and you two know the area better than I do.”

Chuck and Mick glanced at each other. “We don’t know the land at all,” Mick told him. “We both got here two days ago. If you want someone who knows the land, you should talk to Iris.”

“I’m not deputizing a woman,” the Sheriff snarled. “I’m taking you both. Now, let’s go.”

“But we’re supposed to be getting married in less than two hours,” Violet cried. “You can’t take them now!”

“Oh, yes, I can,” Sheriff Maitland shot back. “This is a matter of public safety. We
can’t let an accused murderer run free. We’ve got to bring him in, and if you don’t come, I’ll arrest the whole pack of you for obstruction of justice. Now, turn around and get your horses out and let’s go.”

He herded Chuck and Mick out of the house over the protests of the women.

The door slammed on them, and the three sisters faced each other again. Rose’s breath came out in gasps, and her eyes darted every which way, searching for help from somewhere. “This can’t be happening! This can’t be happening! Not now!”

Iris and Violet blinked at her. “Well,” Iris remarked. “I guess that’s it.”

“‘It’?” Rose shrieked “How can you say that’s it?”

“You heard him,” Iris replied. “He just deputized Chuck and Mick.
They’ll track down Jake and arrest him for Cornell’s murder. Then our lives will go on.”

“He can’t arrest Jake,” Rose maintained. “Not now! We’re about to get married.”

“You can’t marry Jake,” Iris told her. “He’s a wanted murderer.”

Rose covered her ears with her hands, clamped her eyes shut, and screeched at the top of her lungs. “He is not a murderer!”

“You keep saying that,” Iris replied. “But what are you going to do about it? You can’t stop the sheriff from arresting him.”

“I can stop him,” Rose maintained.

“You?” Iris shot back. “You can stop him? How?”

Rose looked toward the door. “I can tell him Jake didn’t kill Cornell.”

“Do you really think he’ll believe you?” Jake asked. “He has no reason to believe you. You’re his fiancé.”

“You heard him say,” Rose pointed out, “he believes your story about being alone with Mick in the barn. You have no one to verify your story, but he believes you.”

“Of course he believes us,” Iris replied. “One of us isn’t the owner of the murder weapon. Besides, you’ll say and do anything to protect Jake. Someone had to kill Cornell. If you can’t tell the sheriff who really did it, then protesting Jake’s innocence doesn’t mean a thing.”

“This can’t be happening,” Rose wailed.

“It is happening,” Iris told her. “He killed Cornell, and now he’s going to pay the price. You should be glad they’re taking him in before you married him. Then you wouldn’t be married to a murderer. Anyway, he ran off and left you. He couldn’t marry you now, even if he wanted to.”

“Iris is right,” Violet put in. “It’s better for you to stay single than to marry a wanted man. You can always get another mail-order husband who isn’t mixed up with the law.”

“How can you say that?” Rose gasped. “You know I don’t want anything else in the world than to marry Jake.”

Violet patted her on the shoulder, and the tears streaked down her cheeks.  “I know you don’t, but
it’s better this way. He’ll either be on the run, or in jail for this murder. He won’t be with you. It’s better for you not to marry him. Then no one can tie you to him. You’re free to marry someone else.”

“I’ll never marry anyone else,” Rose sobbed. “No one can ever take his place in my life. I’ll be alone for the rest of my life if I can’t have him.”

“You say that now,” Iris replied. “After a while of him being gone, you might feel differently. Besides, we’ll need another man to run the ranch. Now that Jake’s gone, we’re a man short.”

Rose shook her head. “No. That
won’t happen. Jake will clear his name, and then he’ll come back, and then we’ll get married. I’ll tell the Sheriff he didn’t kill Cornell, and then he’ll leave, and Jake will come back. That’s what I’ll do.”

“How will Jake clear his name?” Iris asked. “Not only is he in possession of the murder weapon, he
owns
the murder weapon, which means it wasn’t likely to be out of his possession at the time of the murder. And going on the run to avoid arrest only makes him look even more guilty.”

“But he didn’t kill Cornell,” Rose insisted. “You have to believe me.”

. “You already know how I feel about Jake,” Iris told her, “but you have to be realistic about this. It’s virtually impossible that he could ever convince anybody that he’s innocent, with evidence like that against him.”

Rose collapsed into another flood of weeping. “I know it. I was so convinced I could stop him from taking responsibility for it.”

“But he
is
responsible for it,” Iris pointed out. “Why should you stop him being held responsible? If he killed Cornell, he should pay the price for it.”

“You don’t understand,” Rose cried.

“Explain it to me, then,” Iris shot back. “Explain to me what makes you so convinced he didn’t do it. Explain to me how he could have been in possession of the murder weapon at the time of Cornell’s death without being responsible for killing him. I would love to hear you explain that.”

Rose stared at Iris with tears streaming down her cheeks. She opened her mouth, but broke down in sobs again. “I can’t. I want to, but I can’t.”

Violet intervened. “Leave her alone, Iris.”

“I’m trying to help her,” Iris argued.

“This isn’t helping,” Violet shot back. “Can’t you see her heart is breaking? Leave her alone.”

“I know her heart is breaking,” Iris replied. “But you have to admit, this could be the best thing to happen to her.”

Rose started to say something else, but just as
quickly, she swallowed her tears and squared her shoulders. This couldn’t be happening. Something would happen to stop the Sheriff from arresting Jake, to stop him from running away to avoid arrest.

He
couldn’t leave! He couldn’t! Not after all the hope she invested in marrying him. She never cared about anyone the way she cared about Jake, and now, when he held the key to her heart, he was gone!

Curse that Sheriff,
and curse Cornell for dying, and curse everybody in the world! If she couldn’t marry Jake, what was the point of anything? What was the point of living at all, if she couldn’t marry the only man in the world worth marrying?

The dam holding her emotions back broke apart, letting them rush out into the open. “It doesn’t matter now. You both finally got what you wanted. The sheriff has gone to get him, and when he comes back,
he’ll take Jake away, and I won’t be able to marry him. You can both be happy now. You got what you wanted.”

“This isn’t what I wanted,” Iris replied. “I mean, I didn’t want you to marry him.
But I wanted you to decide that for yourself. I didn’t want you to be abandoned at the altar, and I didn’t want it to happen so suddenly, within hours of your wedding. It isn’t fair to you. The Sheriff should have a heart.”

Rose tried to think of something tough and cutting to say, but she burst into tears instead. She covered her eyes with her hand, and her sobs forced themselves out of her body with such force she feared they would split her in half.

Iris and Violet laid their hands on her to comfort her, but she only cried all the harder, and they wrapped their arms around her to protect her from her pain.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” she sobbed. “I don’t know what I’m going to do now that he isn’t going to marry me. I thought everything would be all right once we were married, that marrying him would take care of everything else.
I’ve banked all my hopes on him, and now he’s gone. I know he only ran off because he doesn’t want to get arrested. I can’t blame him for that. This is all my fault.”

“How is it your fault?” Iris asked. “The sheriff can match the bullet he took out of Cornell’s chest with Jake’s gun.  I always thought he was guilty. Now we have the proof.”

A loud sob tore out of Rose’s throat, and Violet turned on her middle sister. “That’s not helping anything right now, Iris. If you can’t find a way to help Rose, then keep it to yourself.”

Iris pulled her head down between her shoulders. “I’m sorry. I
shouldn’t have said that. Rose, listen to me. Whether he’s guilty or not, it’s better for you if you stay unmarried.”

With a loud cry, Rose tore herself away and fled up the stairs to her room. She slammed the door and threw herself down on her face on her bed. She buried her face in the pillow and gave vent to her grief.