The Accidental Lawman (19 page)

Then she blew out the candle and climbed back into bed.

By afternoon of the next day, Amelia was back in Glory, knocking at Reverend McCormick’s front door. Charity ushered her in and almost immediately there was another caller at the door. Charity excused herself and left Amelia standing in the parlor as she hurried to answer it.

Amelia recognized Hank’s voice the moment he said hello and her heart filled with joy.

I’m beginning to realize how very much I need you in my life, Amelia.

Charity led him into the parlor.

“You’re back,” Hank said as he walked into the room. He sounded relieved rather than surprised to find her here. “I recognized the Harroway buggy as it passed by. I stopped by your house, but you weren’t there so I came by here on the off chance that you’d visit Brand first.” He lowered his voice and took a step closer. “Are you all right?”

“I’m perfectly fine.” She turned to Charity. “I came to see Brand, if he has time to spare,” Amelia said.

“He’s in his study. I’ll tell him you’re here,” Charity said before she hurried down the hall.

“I missed you,” Hank said softly when they were alone.

“I was only gone one night.” She wondered if it were
a sin to feel so joyful when there was so much sorrow in the world.

“I sleep better knowing you’re safely tucked in your own bed.”

She wished she could control the blush that crept up her cheeks. It burned all the way to her hairline.

“You look tired,” he added.

“It was exhausting, but Fanny finally seemed a bit better when I left.”

“I had no doubt that you’d help her.”

“I wasn’t certain.” Her mind began to wander down the worry trail until Charity reappeared in the doorway.

“Brand will see you now,” she told Amelia. Then to Hank she offered, “Would you care for some tea or coffee?”

“No thank you. I’ll be heading back to work now that I’ve found Amelia.”

As Amelia followed Charity down the hall, her heart may have been heavy, but a smile kept teasing the corners of her mouth.

“Please, have a seat, Amelia,” Reverend McCormick offered. “I take it this isn’t a social call?”

She sat on the leather chair opposite his wide mahogany desk. His office was compact yet organized, nothing like Hank’s disorderly piles and crammed bookcases. Neat stacks of papers and books nearly covered Brand’s desk. He folded his hands in the empty space in the center and waited for her to take the lead.

“I don’t even know where or how to begin, but I need your advice,” she said.

“I can’t imagine this being an easy time for you.”

“This is not about Evan,” she said. “The fact is, I’ve had some troubling thoughts in regard to a patient. Al
though I’m not a physician in the true sense of the word, folks around here trust me to keep their confidence—just as my father would have done.”

He nodded. “I understand completely.”

“I’m sorely wrestling with something that is so very troubling that I must talk to someone about it. Since you lend an ear to folks during troubled times and keep their confidence, I hope you will keep mine, now.”

“Of course, Amelia. You know that I will.” He leaned back in his chair.

Just then a mockingbird landed on the windowsill and trilled a few notes of its summer song. Amelia took its appearance as a sign of God’s blessing and was reassured she was doing the right thing.

“If I suspected that a terrible sin was being perpetrated on an innocent victim—and yet I have no proof—am I obligated to tell someone? If my suspicions are invalid, if this person is completely innocent, then I would have slandered him. He would be completely ruined if anyone were to find out—and for no reason other than some hysterical musing on my part.”

The reverend sat for a moment in contemplative silence. The fact that his steady gaze never wavered was comforting.

“Amelia, you have never been the hysterical type. In fact, you are one of the most even-tempered females I’ve ever known. How great is this ‘terrible sin’?”

She looked down at her clenched hands where they rested in her lap. “One of the worst,” she whispered. “Enough to ruin at least three lives.”

“You have no proof whatsoever?”

She shook her head. She would have no proof until she was sure Fanny was definitely in a delicate condition.
Even then nothing would be completely clear unless Fanny confessed all.

“In a week or two, I’ll know more. But even then I won’t be absolutely certain that I know the whole story.”

“You must weigh all the consequences and decide what to do. If you need my help, don’t hesitate to come to me.”

“I will definitely come to you first. Thank you for seeing me, Reverend.”

“You know you’re welcome anytime.”

Amelia collected her reticule and rose, ready to take her leave. The preacher was watching her closely.

“Are you sure this isn’t about Evan? He hasn’t been back, has he?”

Afraid she’d led him to believe she was talking about Evan, hiding him, or that she even knew where he was, she said, “No, not at all. I haven’t seen him. Thank you again for your time, Reverend.”

She left the office and made her way alone down the short hallway, thankful that at least one of her problems had nothing whatsoever to do with her brother.

T
hree days later, Hank was in the
Gazette
office working with Ricardo Hernandez, the fourteen-year-old son of Laura Foster’s cook. Not only did Ricardo deliver papers for him, but Hank had apprenticed the youth, teaching him to work the hand press.

Ricardo took to printing like a duck to water. He was methodical and thorough and the look of pride on the boy’s face when his two-page edition of the
Glory Gazette
came off the press was worth the extra time it had taken Hank to train him.

The headline stood out in boldface type: All Quiet In Glory No Further Robbery Attempts. For Amelia’s sake, Hank wanted to downplay the fact that the Perkins Gang had escalated their attacks on other establishments around the county. As he reread the headline, Oz Caldwell’s words came back to haunt him.

I hope you’ll do the right thing, Larson, if and when Hawthorne shows up again.

“I hope so, too,” Hank mumbled to himself.

“Señor?”
Ricardo looked up from where he was stacking neatly folded pages.

“Just thinking out loud,” Hank told him.

“Pardon?”

“
Nada.
Nothing.” Hank’s Spanish was rudimentary at best. He crossed the room, speaking slowly and distinctly. Adding hand gestures, he instructed Ricardo to finish folding and stacking the papers and then to clean the press.

When the new bell he’d installed over the front door rang, Hank looked up and saw Brand McCormick walk in. He appreciated the minister’s easygoing manner and the fact that the preacher never pushed or prodded him about his lack of faith.

“Howdy, Reverend.”

“I hope this isn’t bad timing.” Brand walked over to the stack of papers and glanced down at the headline.

“Have one,” Hank offered.

“I’ll wait for it to arrive on the front porch. I like to read it over my coffee in the morning.”

“You must not have more than one cup. There’s not much to read.”

“It’s a far cry from no paper at all, believe me. We’re all appreciative of what you’re doing, Hank. A newspaper puts our little town on the map, so to speak.” Brand settled on a corner of Hank’s desk. “You’ve done a good thing.”

“Thank you, Reverend.” From the way Brand hesitated to go on, Hank began to suspect this wasn’t just a social call.

“You’ve been spending a lot of time with Amelia.” As usual, the preacher wasn’t a man to waste words.

“I have.” He frowned, wondering what Brand was getting at.

He’d called on Amelia just yesterday and they had taken a stroll around the square together. She seemed fine—as fine as could be with her brother wanted all over Texas. “Is something wrong?”

“Are you growing to care for her?”

Hank took a deep breath, shoved his fingers through his hair. A glance across the room assured him Ricardo was fine on his own. He moved closer to Brand, rested an elbow on a bookcase haphazardly stuffed with papers and books he’d shoved in at random. The entire office was filling up with paper, both blank and printed. There were volumes of books that he’d shipped from his personal library in Saint Joe as well as journals stuffed with his own musings.

“When my wife died, I never thought I’d be attracted to another woman again. Especially someone like Amelia.” He pictured Tricia—ethereal, blond, genteel. “Tricia was not nearly as independent minded as Amelia. I can’t imagine her ever fending for herself the way Amelia has had to do. My wife was stunningly beautiful. She wasn’t conceited in the least, but she was aware of her beauty. Amelia is lovely, but has no idea. She’s selfless and modest, attuned to nature—”

“It sounds as if you’re falling in love, Hank.”

Hank shrugged in admittance, finding it hard to believe himself.

“I came to Texas to start a paper and write a novel. I never thought I’d fall in love again. Not in a million years. Certainly not this soon.”

“Sometimes God has plans for us other than the ones we have for ourselves,” Brand said.

When Hank didn’t respond, the reverend watched him closely. “Amelia is a God-fearing woman, Hank. Do you believe in God?”

“I never was much of a believer. After I lost Tricia and the baby, I swore I never would be.”

“You realize her faith in God plays a sizable role in Amelia’s life.”

“I would never ask her to give up her faith.”

“I didn’t think you would. I just hope that you’ll keep your heart open to one day accepting the Lord into your life, too, Hank. It’s not all that impossible, for as you’ve seen, you never know what’s down the road. Here you are in Glory, acting as sheriff and discovering He may have brought love into your life again. For all you know, He just might come knocking at your heart Himself.”

“Señor?”

Hank looked over and found Ricardo waiting patiently beside the Hoe press with a rag. Hank turned back to Brand. “I can’t make you any promises, Reverend,” he said.

“Just keep your heart open. God will do the rest.” Brand pushed away from the desk and headed for the door. The bell tinkled when Brand opened the door. He paused on the threshold. “Folks in this town care deeply for Amelia, Hank. No one wants to see her hurt.”

“You’re not the first person to tell me that. Hurting Amelia is the last thing I’d ever want to do.”

When Mick Robinson, the blacksmith, ran into trouble extracting an impacted tooth, he sent for Amelia. She rummaged through a drawer in the back of the apothecary cabinet and grabbed both her dental chisel and a tooth key and tossed them into her bag. She climbed on a step stool and reached for a bottle of Magnetic Tooth Cordial and Pain Killer she’d concocted from one of Dr. Chase’s recipes.

As soon as she walked into the shady interior of the huge barn on Main Street, she saw Denton Fairchild, the bartender, seated on an upended barrel with a rag tied around his head. His right cheek was so swollen he looked like a greedy squirrel. Sweat had broken out on his bald pate. His skin was nearly as white as the bandage.

“Thanks for comin’, Amelia.” Mick wiped his meaty fists on the front of his smithy’s apron. “Never was a tooth I couldn’t yank until now.”

Denton moaned and rolled his eyes. When Amelia took a step in his direction, he whimpered and drew back.

“Let me just have a look, Mr. Fairchild,” she said. “I promise not to touch your tooth.”

Of the belief that men made much worse patients than women, Amelia spoke to him as patiently as if he were a child as she unwound the bandage. “Can you open your mouth?” The swelling was enormous.

“’ink tho,” he mumbled. He opened his mouth slightly.

“Could you pull your cheek out with your finger so I might peek inside?” She knew that he’d be less likely to yelp if he did it himself.

He complied. Amelia saw enough to recognize a fractured molar.

“I’ll have that out in no time,” she promised.

He shook his head and started mumbling protests while she opened the bottle of Magnetic Tooth Cordial. She poured a dab onto a wad of lint. As she reached toward his head, he jerked back.

“Sit still, Mr. Fairchild. I’m going to apply this mixture to the outside of your cheek first. A slight numbing effect will occur and that’ll allow me to dab some inside on your tooth. In few minutes, you won’t feel that terrible pain anymore. Won’t that be wonderful? While the cordial is working, I’ll take out your tooth. How does that sound?”

“’errible.”

“You’ll be suffering until that tooth is out. The nerve is exposed.”

Denton moaned but held steady. Amelia swabbed his cheek with the cordial—a blend of laudanum, chloro
form, gum camphor, oil of cloves, sulphuric ether and oil of lavender.

The bartender began to relax almost immediately. Soon he permitted her to swab the offending molar. After allowing the cordial to work a few moments longer, she discreetly slipped the chisel and tooth key out of her bag and nodded to Mick.

The smithy slipped up behind Denton and placed his hands on the man’s shoulders to keep him steady on the barrel. The bartender’s eyes widened.

Amelia located the broken molar. She nodded to Mick and then as fast as she could, tried to slip the hook of the extractor as far into the area between the tooth and gum as she could. Then she quickly began to turn the crank. At first the man felt nothing. Then he gurgled a yelp and struggled to lunge off the barrel, but Mick shoved him back down.

Amelia kept cranking, gritting her own teeth until Denton’s tooth made a distinctive sound like that of a cork coming out of a bottle. Both halves of the tooth popped out of his mouth.

Amelia tidied up her things and then took a small vial out of her bag. “Here’s some clove oil.” She handed it to Denton and said, “If you need anything stronger for the pain, don’t hesitate to stop by my house.”

Mick handed Amelia a newly minted silver dollar.

“Thanks for helping out, Amelia. Denton was squealin’ like a piglet and I didn’t know what to do for love nor money. Sorry I took you away from whatever you were doin’.”

She was about to tell him that she was merely watering her garden, but just then a great commotion started at the far end of town. Evidently, the ruckus was headed their way.

Amelia and the others ran up to the corner of Main
Street. Stores emptied and shopkeepers followed customers out onto the street. A band of riders was headed toward the center of town.

Amelia’s blood ran cold when she recognized Sheriff Oswald Caldwell in the lead. Behind him, on a second horse, a man was slumped over his saddle. His hat brim hid his face and features. Amelia caught her breath and waited, afraid Caldwell had captured Evan and was parading him through Glory, forcing her brother to face his shame.

The man moved. When Amelia saw that he was of heavier build and older than Evan, her breath came out in a rush. As she watched, Harrison Barker and a few of the others ran out to where Caldwell had reined in and dismounted. Someone reached up for the wounded man whose wrists were bound and pulled him down off his horse.

He appeared to be the same man who held up the Cutters’ bank a month ago. The man collapsed on the ground at Caldwell and his posse’s feet. Harrison started yelling for someone to go find Amelia just as she began to run toward the fallen outlaw.

Hank was in the doorway of the
Gazette
office telling Brand goodbye when they heard the commotion and turned to see what was going on. Seconds later, someone was shouting Amelia’s name and Hank saw her racing down the street from the direction of the livery stable.

He and the preacher headed down Main toward the growing crowd. Hank recognized Oz Caldwell, standing head and shoulders above his deputies. Everyone was milling around near the corner. Hank could hear the preacher’s heavy footsteps pounding along behind him.

As he drew near the circle of onlookers, Harrison Barker ran up to him.

“The Perkins Gang broke Harvey Ruggles out of county jail. Sheriff Caldwell is mad as a hornet. He and his men shot Ruggles during the escape and the other four left him behind. The posse tracked the rest of them back this way. Almost into Glory!” Harrison’s voice went up an octave on his last sentence. Sweat beaded his upper lip.

Hank pushed his way through the crowd encircling Amelia, Caldwell and the wounded outlaw, hoping the man on the ground wasn’t Evan Hawthorne.

Amelia was kneeling alongside the wounded man, pressing his bloody, wadded shirt against a shoulder wound. Her expression was one of concern, but her composure assured Hank the man wasn’t her brother.

“It’s a clean shoulder wound,” she told Caldwell, looking up. The sheriff towered over her but she didn’t cower. “Bullet went right through. He should be all right.”

“Good,” Caldwell spit out. “I want him fit enough to hang.”

Hank saw Amelia blanch. She turned her attention to the outlaw again. Hank realized Caldwell had spotted him when he said, “Larson, round up your posse and let’s get going before the trail gets cold.”

“Posse? I don’t have a posse.”

Caldwell spun around pointing to men in the crowd. “You, you and you,” he ordered, “saddle up. You’re riding with us.”

No one dared refuse. Not even Charlie Scout, who’d been lounging on the walk outside the mercantile that morning. Caldwell had chosen him first.

Hank hurried back to his office to collect his borrowed gun and saddle his horse. By the time he rode back to the corner, the wounded outlaw was sitting up in the dusty street, leaning against the boardwalk. Amelia was care
fully repacking her medical bag, winding a strip of linen bandage.

She paused and looked up, scanned the gathering of men on horseback until their eyes met. Hers were bright with unshed tears, her forehead creased with worry. She rose to her feet, ignored the dust on her skirt. Earlier she’d shoved off her straw hat. Now it dangled from her neck, rested against her shoulders.

More than anything he wanted to dismount, to hold her, convince her that everything would be fine. He wanted to ease her worry, but he knew realistically, there was nothing he could do to assure her brother’s safety. Nothing at all save what he’d already promised her.

Ignoring the crowd, her shoulders straight and proud, she walked over to where he sat his horse. She paused beside his stirrup. As if there were only the two of them in the world, she held his eyes with her gaze as she tried to smile. Her courage wavered, her chin quivered. She didn’t let one single tear fall.

“There were five men in the Perkins Gang. Four of them are at large. One is Evan.” Her brother’s name came out in a whisper. “He is as tall as you, Hank. He’s lanky. He’s got dark hair and blue eyes. And he’s only nineteen.”

He leaned down so that only she could hear. “I’ll do everything I can to keep him safe, Amelia. I promise.”

She gently placed her palm on his knee. “I know you will. I trust you. Just be careful,” she whispered.

Without thinking, he leaned close, cupped the back of her head in his hand and kissed her right then and there in front of the whole town.

Caldwell shouted, “Let’s ride!”

Both posses headed down the street after him. Hank turned his horse around, rode a few steps away and
glanced back. Amelia was watching him, flanked by Brand McCormick and his sister. Brand’s voice carried over the sound of hoofbeats.