The Healer's Touch (27 page)

Shaking her head, she got up and began to clear the table.

Mid-morning found Lyric pinning the wash to the line. Sheets flapped in the rain-bathed breeze. Joseph's words to Lark still rang in her ear. “You'll have to do exactly what I say…”

He didn't include Lyric in his plan, whatever that might be, and the thought stung. If she knew him like she thought she did, he had a recourse he was considering. Why hadn't he trusted her enough to confide his strategy? She should know by now that he wasn't the sort of man to stand idly by and be hanged because he didn't know his name, but did he honestly think that she would just hand him over
to the acting sheriff without a fight? Didn't he know by now that she would protect him any way she could? Maybe love blinded her.

Her hands paused in midair. Love. Was that what she felt for this man with no identity? True, abiding love?

Shaking her head, she picked up a dress, shook out the wrinkles, and pinned the garment to the line. In the distance the faint sound of approaching riders came to her. She stepped around the heavy line and frowned when she saw four men approaching. Dropping a wet towel in the basket, she started running for the house. “Joseph!”

The riders drew closer and her screams grew more frantic.
“Joseph!”

He stepped to the back porch and opened the screen. “Yo!”

“They're coming for you!”

Hide.
She must hide him. But where?

Under Mother's bed. The authorities wouldn't disturb a dying woman, especially Edwina Bolton.

She reached the porch and shoved past him. “Come with me. I know just the place to hide you. They can search the house and I'll tell them that I don't know what happened to you, that you were here and you must have run off…”

His arm blocked her. “You're not going to lie for me. The time has come for us to get this over with, Lyric. Let the cards fall where they may.”

“We need to pray,” she said. “ ‘Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.' ”

“Lyric.” He focused grave eyes on her. “I'm not going to live my life hiding from the authorities.” Their gazes met and held, hers swimming with tears. “God is fully aware of what's happening. Let's allow Him to settle the matter.”

“But they're going to
hang
you, Joseph. Don't you realize what that means? You're going to…to…oh, I can't bear it.”

“You're not giving the Lord much credit.”

“You know they will. They've been biding their time until the sheriff couldn't delay any longer without looking like a fool.”

“Get Lark. Tell her and Boots to do what I said. Tack a poster to every tree, storefront, and post in Bolton Holler, announcing the hanging.”

Nodding, Lyric wiped her eyes on her apron. She couldn't fall apart now—not now when he needed her most. “I intend to help.”

Smiling, he drew her close and held her. “I knew I could count on you.”

“Oh, Joseph. You can't hang…”

He gently placed his hand over her mouth. “Trust me. I know you've never been given a reason to place your trust in anyone, but I'm asking for that faith right now. Just do as I say…and it won't hurt to throw a lot of extra prayer in with your work.” Giving her a final squeeze, he released her. “Go do as I say, and be sure you get it done before morning.”

The riders rode up and reined in. The sheriff lifted his rifle. “All right, Younger. You're coming with us.”

Lifting both arms in the air, Ian complied. “Can I bring my horse?”

“No, sir, you can't bring your horse.” The sheriff sniffed at the suggestion. “You're not going to need a horse where you're headed. You're hanging at dawn.”

Lyric stepped in front to shield him. “You have no proof of his identity. You can't hang him.”

“Ma'am.” He shifted in the saddle. “I can and I will hang him at dawn tomorrow morning.”

“What about proof?”

“What about it? He can't prove he isn't a Younger.”

Ian gently eased Lyric aside. “Who do I ride with?”

A smaller man patted the empty saddle space behind. “Climb aboard.”

“No!” Lyric protested, clinging to his arm.

He took her gently by the shoulders and kissed her softly. Lips
met again with more intensity. Moments later, he whispered, “Do as I say.”

Close to hysteria, she drew back, catching a sob. “Yes…yes. You can count on me.”

He gave her a wink, and then walked to the waiting horse and climbed aboard.

“Gone? Joseph's gone?” Boots wrung her hands. “But he can't be gone—they can't hang him without solid proof that he's a criminal! He isn't bad. I just know that he isn't bad!”

“Hush,” Lyric said, starting to gather pen and paper. “They can and they will. They're going to hang him. Law doesn't mean much in these parts. We have to make posters. Quickly. We must have them pinned up before dark.”

Chairs scooted on wooden floors and the women started to work.

Y
OUNGER
H
ANGING
, Lark wrote. “What time will they hang him?”

“Dawn,” she said. Hangings were always at dawn.

Lyric's heart ached as she worked. Her mind refused to function. They couldn't hang Joseph—if it cost her life she wouldn't allow it. They'd run off. She would break him out of jail and then they would ride away and find a new life. He couldn't be a criminal. It wasn't possible. There was too much gentleness in him, and she knew—she just
knew
—that he was a good man.

You only
want
him to be a good man,
her common sense nagged.
What if he isn't? What if he's cruel and despicable and every bit the criminal you first took him to be?
If she ran away with this man, thwarted the authorities in their evil pursuit, she could be opening herself—and Lark—up to a life with a wicked, cruel, merciless man. And they could hang her too if she was caught trying to assist him. Look
how easily he had fooled Lark and Boots about the bats. Could Joseph be trusted?

Uncertainty ricocheted through her mind.
Oh God, help me,
she prayed.
I'm reasoning with my heart and not using practical judgment.

Yet she scribbled furiously, one poster after another, matching Lark's and Boots's frantic efforts. Within the hour they had written enough posters to saturate Bolton Holler with the grim news:

Y
OUNGER TO BE HANGED AT DAWN
.

Lark saddled the horse and brought it to the house, where the three women worked to secure the loaded basket of posters to the saddle. There was still sufficient time to nail up the posters and then turn to the matter of breaking Joseph out of jail.

“We could take Mother's gun and shoot him out of jail,” Lark suggested.

“Two women against the town?” Lyric asked.

“Three,” Boots corrected. “I'm in on this.”

“A gun would be useless against the sheriff and his men. We'd run out of bullets and they would overcome us.” Lyric had enough sense to know it was going to take sheer trickery if they were going to accomplish their bold move. “We have to create a disturbance. Distract them.”

“It would have to be a big interruption.” Boots shook her head. “Maybe I could talk Grandpa into coming to town and distracting the sheriff while we slipped inside the jail and got Joseph.”

“We're not going to involve your grandfather, Boots. What we're contemplating could cost our lives—or at least land us in prison. Your grandfather doesn't need to be mixed up in that. I will be the responsible one if we're caught. I want you girls to stay back when the event begins to unfold.”

“What event?”

“That's what we have to decide.” They led the horse down the road, falling silent. Finally Lyric said, “First we have to create a huge scene.”

“We already know that,” Lark reminded her.

“No, I mean a really big diversion.”

“Dynamite?” Boots asked.

“Do you have dynamite?” Lark asked.

“What would I be doing with dynamite?”

“Maybe your grandfather?”

“Grandpa and dynamite?” Boots laughed. “Have you seen the way he walks lately? He couldn't run fast enough to get away if he lit a piece of dynamite. Besides, what would he need dynamite for on his farm?”

“Dynamite would be destructive,” Lyric admonished the girls. “We might kill someone. Even Joseph.”

“True. Or us,” Lark noted.

“Or us,” Lyric repeated. This ordeal was turning out to be a nightmare. But Joseph trusted her. She'd never experienced trust like that before—except from Lark. Mother didn't trust her; the fact was evident in her eyes, though Lyric had never done anything to deserve the loss of her confidence.

The thought that a man like Joseph valued and placed faith in her, Lyric Bolton, the unlovable and unvalued, spread a warm glow throughout her body.

Whatever it took, she would defend and shield him till her last breath.

Within the hour the three women paused on the hillside, eyes fixed on Bolton Holler. “Won't the folks think it strange that we're nailing up posters about the hanging?” Lark asked.

“Stranger than they already think we are?” Lyric focused on the people of the holler going about their afternoon activities. The minute the Boltons walked into town the shoppers would scatter like chaff in the wind. Her eyes were drawn to the small brick jail and
the one window with heavy bars. For a long moment no one said anything. Then Lyric spoke. “I have it.”

Boots turned to look at her. “Have what?”

“I have the distraction.”

“What?” both girls asked.

“Let's get the posters up and then I'll fill you in on the plan. It means we'll have to work through the night.”

“I don't care. I'm not tired.” Lark brightened. “You seriously have an idea you think might work?”

“I think so.” She reached for another poster, Joseph's orders ringing in her ears.
Get as many posters up as you can.
“If it doesn't work, you'll need to add our names to these before morning,” she said grimly.