Taken for English (26 page)

Annalise scrambled closer to the road and began to wave her arms.

“I’m glad you came first,” Elijah whispered.

“Did Leah do this to you?” Ruth hated the tone in her own voice, but she could not help it.

“Maybe we’ll talk about that later.”

Ruth put the back of her hand against his cheek, telling herself it was to judge his temperature but knowing that something more than fledgling professional instincts guided her movement.

“I hate the thought that you might be seriously hurt,” she said.

He gave her an impish smile. “I love that you hate it. I love
you.”

She was so relieved he was conscious, talking, smiling, trying to move. “The paramedics will be able to give you a thorough going over, but I can almost guarantee they will take you in. Protocol. They are not going to come all the way out here and then leave because you say you don’t need them.”

“I do admit to having the wind knocked out of me.”

A fire engine and an ambulance rolled into the meadow. Bryan Nichols stepped out of the ambulance.

Annie stood back out of the way and watched. She noticed that Ruth had moved only a few inches, crouching next to Elijah’s head and leaving a hand on his shoulder while she spoke softly with Bryan as he examined Elijah. Two other responders pulled a gurney out of the back of the vehicle, rolled it across the ragged ground, and lowered it on the other side of Elijah. Ruth and the EMTs formed a wall around Elijah, and Annie could see next to nothing of what they were doing.

When Ruth pointed to her and Bryan looked over his shoulder, Annie knew she was going to have to give some account of what happened. There could only be one account. Elijah was trying to get Leah Deitwaller down off the heap of gravel, she kicked him in the chest, and he landed on his back. That was what she told Bryan a few seconds later.

“You did the right thing to keep him still and talking.” Bryan jotted notes on a form on his clipboard. “He said essentially the same thing you did, so there doesn’t seem to be any cognitive alteration. We’ll immobilize him for transport.”

“Will you take him to the clinic in town?”

Bryan shook his head. “Cañon City. The ortho doc on call at the hospital there will make sure his spine did not suffer any trauma and decide about treatment.”

Ruth approached them. “I’m going with him. He needs somebody with him.”

Bryan wriggled his fingers in a neutral gesture. “There’s room in the back.”

“What about your car?” Annie asked.

“I’ll come back for it. Would you lock it for me, please?”

Annie walked over to the blue Prius that had belonged to her until a few months ago, opened the driver’s door, and snapped the master lock button.

“The other rig is going back to town if you want a ride.” Bryan pointed with a thumb.

“Thanks. I’ll see if someone knows how to get hold of his parents.”

“Good idea.”

Annie paced back to Ruth and drew her into a hug. “He’s going to be okay.”

Ruth nodded against Annie’s shoulder. “It’s just the thought that maybe he won’t be. I can’t leave him.”

“You shouldn’t.” Beneath her hands on Ruth’s back, Annie felt her friend tremble.

They stood side by side while the EMTs slid the gurney into the ambulance. Bryan waited for Ruth with his hand on the open door.

June 1892

S
heriff Abraham Byler stood up from behind his desk in the Mountain Home jailhouse at the trampling sound of a horse’s hooves overlaid with the creak and rattle of the wagon the beast pulled. He was outside the small structure by the time Deputy Combs reined in the animal. Three young men hung their sheepish heads. A.G. knew them all by name—and their daddies, too.

The deputy slung down from the wagon bench. “These are the boys who were out shooting—except Jesse Roper. He threatened me with a pistol.” He jabbed his finger at the men in the wagon. “They’re all witnesses. You can get their statements.”

A.G. sighed. Jesse Roper had hardly been in town four days and already was a steady aggravation.

“Boys, you tell the sheriff,” Combs said.

“What will happen to us if we do?” Digger asked. “All we did is a little friendly can shooting.”

“Which you know good and well you were not supposed to do,” A.G. said.

“Let’s arrest these boys.” Combs signaled that they should get out of the wagon.

“I think Roper is our real trouble,” A.G. said.

“That’s right!” Digger heaved himself over the side of the wagon on one arm. “He’s the troublemaker.”

A.G. shook his head. “I reckon he is. But that does not take you off the hook. One at a time, you tell me what you saw when Deputy Combs went to collect you.” He pointed at Digger.

He listened carefully to three rapid accounts and then turned to his deputy. “What else do you want to add, Thomas?”

Deputy Combs held up his hand and opened his thumb and forefinger about three inches. “That pistol was this far from my face. It’s a clear violation of the law to threaten an officer with a weapon.”

“I know the law,” A.G. said. He was not going to make it home while Bess’s chicken was still hot tonight. “We’re going to have to go talk to him.”

“We weren’t the only witnesses,” Digger said. “One of those Amish men was there.”

A.G. pressed his lips to one side. “Mmm.”

“I didn’t see him.” Deputy Combs put both hands on his hips. “You have a lot of gall to involve an innocent man in this.”

Digger pointed up. “In the maple tree outside my family’s house. Must have followed from the clearing. He was there, too.”

A.G. looked at the other two men. “Did either of you see him at the house?”

They shook their heads.

“I saw him!” Digger insisted. “He just about fell out of that tree when Jesse Roper waved that pistol in the deputy’s face. Wish he had. Then y’all would believe me.”

A.G. raised a thumb to the small jail behind him. “You three go in there and behave yourselves. I’d better find you sitting right where I left you when I get back.”

“Yes, sir,” they all muttered as they filed in.

A.G. pulled the door shut after them and turned to the deputy. “I’ll look for the Amish man and get his story. My gut tells me we’re going to need a posse to take out to the Twigg ranch. You see who is available. Try to keep Mooney out of it. And none of these boys’ daddies.”

They tossed some names back and forth, and Combs unhitched his horse from the wagon and saddled it.

A.G. took a deep breath and exhaled. “I will see you in one hour on the road off the Twigg ranch. Stay off their property until I get there.”

Joseph splashed water from the barrel inside the stables on his face and neck and rubbed. Then he used a dipper to pour some over the top of his bare head.

“No letter?” he said, when he opened his eyes and saw Zeke’s boots in the hay next to him.

“No letter.”

“So we wait.” Joseph toweled his face dry and ran his hands through his hair. He opened a small leather bag and considered his razor with one hand, while running the other over his three-day beard. If he did not shave soon, people would start to think he had married.

He corrected himself. The
English
would draw no such conclusion. In Gassville a man’s beard meant nothing about his marital status.

“We still have to muck,” Zeke said. “You’ll only have to clean up again.”

Joseph did not want to explain the tree sap stuck to his face and hair on the side of his head. “I was hot.”

“We could go into town to eat tonight.” Zeke grabbed the handles of a cart and parked it at the opening of an empty stall. “It might be cooler. We have not splurged lately.”

Joseph took a pitchfork into the stall. “Maybe.” He tossed soiled straw into the cart. Once. Twice. Three times, with vigor.

“Joseph, what’s wrong?”

Joseph leaned on the fork. “If I tell you, you will tell me to stay out of it.”

“Then perhaps you already have your answer.”

Joseph raked the fork through straw with less gusto.

“English
trouble?” Zeke prodded.

Joseph nodded. He gave Zeke the bare facts of the morning. Voices in the stable yard drew them outside. The livery owner stood talking with Sheriff Byler. One man pointed to the stables, and the other stroked his white beard as he raised his eyes toward Joseph and Zeke.

Joseph stepped forward. Zeke grabbed his arm.

“Stay out of it,” Zeke said.

“He is here for me. Can you not see that?”

The sheriff approached. “Joseph Beiler?”

“I am Joseph Beiler.”

“The owner tells me you are from Tennessee,” Sheriff Byler said. “Perhaps we are long-lost kin.”

Joseph glanced at Zeke. “I would be pleased if we were.”

“Let’s chew that fat another day. Right now I need to know what happened this afternoon.”

Joseph repeated his account, watching the sheriff nod at intervals.

“That squares with what the others reported,” Sheriff Byler said. “It seems that even Thomas Combs did not exaggerate this time.”

The sheriff strode back to his horse and mounted swiftly. “We’re organizing a posse to go out to the Twigg ranch,” he said to the livery owner. “You are welcome to come.”

“Twigg?” The owner waved his arms. “No thank you.”

The sheriff looked at Zeke and Joseph. “You, too.”

Zeke shook his head. “Our people do not ride in posses.”

Joseph turned to the stall where his mount awaited.

Maura saw the dust cloud and heard the clatter of hooves before she discerned the individual men.

At least fifteen men on horses. It could only be a posse.

When they paused in front of her uncle’s milliner’s shop, Maura put a hand on Walter’s shoulder.

Thomas Combs looked down from his horse. “Is your father here, Walter?”

“What is this about?” Maura held her grip on Walter’s resisting shoulder.

“Just a posse, Miss Woodley. Men’s work. Is Edwin here?”

“He was feelin’ poorly,” Walter said. “He went on down to Doc Denton’s.”

Thomas scowled. “Sheriff said no Dentons. Not in this business.”

Walter wriggled out from under Maura’s hand. “Shall I tell my daddy where to find you?”

“Hush, Walter,” Maura said.

“I’ll come,” Walter said.

“You will do no such thing.” Even as Maura chastised her cousin, she was planning her own escape from the shop. If the sheriff did not want the Dentons involved, the trouble was sure to involve the Twiggs. “Deputy Combs, I hope you resolve the matter peaceably.”

“I’ll settle for justice.” Thomas tugged on his reins, and the blur of restless men picked up speed once again.

“Your daddy will be back soon,” Maura said to Walter, grabbing his shoulder again. “Can you be on your own for ten minutes without getting into trouble?”

“I’m near full grown.”

“Yes, you are.” Maura’s horse and cart were hitched around the corner. “So act like it.”

“If you’re going, I’m going.” Walter shook off her hold.

“No, you are not. Your daddy will look for you right here. Promise me you’ll be here.”