by S. B. Moores
“My Lord,” Janice said. “What on earth!”
Smith lay on the area rug without moving. Justin felt Smith’s neck for a pulse. Then he rolled the man over heavily onto his back. Smith had fallen on his own knife, which was now buried to the hilt in his chest.
Justin looked at Abigail. “I thought he’d come back here tonight. Bailey, too. Where is he?”
“I’m right here.” Bailey stood in the doorway holding a cocked pistol in each hand.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Bailey looked down at Smith’s body, lying motionless on the floor. “A minor inconvenience. Mr. Smith always was a bit too headstrong for this business.”
“The robbery business, you mean,” Thomas hissed.
“If you say so.” Bailey motioned with one of the pistols for Justin to back away.
Justin’s fists clenched and his body tensed. Abigail saw he was ready to spring at the man in spite of the menacing weapons.
“Justin, please,” she said. “Don’t do anything foolish.” But, at the site of Bailey’s guns, she remembered the pocket pistol in her small purse. The square woolen purse hung by a thin cotton strap from her right shoulder, away from Bailey.
Justin’s angry gaze flashed back and forth between her and Bailey. He was still looking for a chance to leap at the man.
“Justin, you have your son to think of,” she said.
His shoulders relaxed, but only slightly. He moved back, away from Bailey, but his fists were still clenched.
“That’s right, Justin.” Bailey sneered. He stepped farther into the room. “Think of your child. Sit down on the floor, over next to the wall, and don’t do anything foolish.”
“What do you want from us?” Thomas demanded.
“Nothing from you, for the moment. You sit down next to Mr. Sterling there, by the wall.” He motioned again with one of the pistols. Thomas’s jaw was set, but he slowly sat next to Justin.
“Master Johnson?” A servant arrived through a doorway to the kitchen, then a farmhand right behind her. They looked at Bailey wide-eyed, then at the bloody body on the floor.
“Welcome,” Bailey said. “Come right in. Sit down next to the others, by the wall. Do it now.”
Thomas nodded and they sat next to him, not taking their eyes off Bailey and his pistols.
“Are we expecting anyone else?” Bailey asked his hostages.
“Doubtful,” Thomas said. “Not at this time of night.”
The two servants silently nodded their agreement.
“That’s nice. Now you, madam.” Bailey looked at Janice. “I want you to go upstairs and bring me all your jewelry and anything else you have made of silver or gold. No plate. I know the difference. Bring it to me in a pillow case, and it had better be full. If it’s not, one of these pistols might go off accidently, and somebody might get hurt. Probably your husband.”
Janice stared at Thomas.
“Do as he says,” Thomas growled.
“I’ll help you,” Abigail said.
“No!” Bailey shouted. “You stay at the table. Justin needs to know I have you in my sights.”
“You bastard,” Justin said. “If I ever find you—”
“Please don’t finish that thought,” Bailey said. “I don’t want to have to kill you just to keep you from finding me. Not that you’d know where to look. Now move, madam, and be quick about it.” Without letting go of the pistol, he pulled a pocket watch from his vest by its thin chain and looked at it. “I’ll give you five minutes. After that you might hear a pistol shot. Take ten minutes, and you’ll probably hear two.” He let go of the watch and let it dangle on the chain.
Janice looked at her husband and trembled.
“Go!” Bailey shouted.
“Go,” Thomas said. “And hurry.”
She stood up, started to run one way, then stopped and ran in the opposite direction. Bailey chuckled. “I told you it was bad luck not to pay your debts,” he said to Thomas.
“My son owed you nothing.”
Abigail looked at Justin, who still had fire in his eyes. She raised her eyebrows, trying to tell him with her own eyes to calm down and to stay where he was. When Bailey wasn’t looking, she could see Justin’s leg move, ever so slightly, as he tried to get his footing underneath him. He still intended to spring at the man, she knew.
As casually as she could, she let her hand drop from the tabletop to her lap. This caused one of Bailey’s pistols to swing in her direction.
“Try to stay still, miss,” Bailey said.
Justin’s leg moved again.
She could feel the weight of her little pistol as the purse rested against her hip. If she could reach it before Bailey had a chance to shoot . . .
Justin’s leg moved another half inch. He was forcing her hand. If he sprang at Bailey she wouldn’t be able to shoot the man before he put a musket ball in Justin. But if Justin remembered her pistol, that might have been part of his plan. If he was willing to die at the Alamo, no doubt he’d be willing to sacrifice himself to save his wife and child.
“Believe me, this is nothing personal,” Bailey said. “And I apologize for all the trouble.” He took off his top hat and set it on a side table. “Without Mr. Smith’s help, it would be hard for me to relieve you of your cattle. But I’m sure a man of your obvious means must have bestowed any number of precious gifts on his wife. I’ll have to be satisfied with those.”
Thomas glared at the man, miserable, full of hatred and helplessness. Abigail let her hand slide ever so slightly toward her hip. Now her hand was partially hidden by the girth of her stomach. Her fingers fumbled at the opening of her purse. She tried to remember the last time she’d checked the charge in the pistol’s flash pan. It didn’t matter. When Justin made his move, which apparently he was determined to do, she would have to shoot, and shoot as quickly as possible.
“Your wife is taking her time,” Bailey said to Thomas. He wiped his forehead with the back of one hand, still holding a pistol, and glanced at the watch. “I wonder if she really loves you. Perhaps she wants to keep her jewelry and thinks losing an old codger like you is a small price to pay. It would be a shame if she has already left by a back door.”
Abigail’s thumb caught the opening of the purse. The strap quivered, which caught Bailey’s eye.
“Ah, a purse!” he said. “Now we have something to do while we wait.” He stepped over Smith’s body to the table where Abigail sat, but he kept an eye and one pistol trained on Justin. “You’re a Whitfield, aren’t you?” he said to her.
Abigail nodded as he stood over her.
“Whitfields are even better off than the Johnsons. What have you got in that little purse of yours?”
He bent down and started to reach across her body for the purse. Abigail saw Justin’s leg move with lightning speed. The side of his boot brushed across the carpet and made a hissing sound as he came to one knee. Bailey’s eyes twitched, but Janice appeared in a doorway at the same time, carrying a heavy pillowcase. Justin reached for the knife in Smith’s chest. Before Bailey could react, Abigail clutched the man’s shirt in her left hand and kept him from turning around. At the same time, she raised the pistol in her right hand, placed it against his forehead, and pulled the trigger.
The small explosion filled the room. Janice screamed and dropped the pillowcase. Bailey uttered a short, surprised cry. Both of his pistols discharged, one on either side of Abigail’s chair, splintering the floor and sending wood chips flying into the air. Through a small cloud of black powder smoke, Abigail watched Bailey as he fell backward with a disbelieving look on his face. He dropped onto the floor next to Smith, still clinging to the empty pistols. One leg twitched, and then he lay still.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
May 25, 1836
Justin and Abigail stood arm-in-arm in the Johnsons’ yard, along with Thomas, Henrietta Whitfield, and Walter Sterling. They watched the sheriff’s wagon drive away with the bodies of Bailey and Smith bouncing in the back
. Janice had recovered from the drama of the evening and was in the kitchen supervising preparation of breakfast for them all.
“Who would think such awful things could happen in Ridgetop,” Henrietta said, shaking her head.
“Now perhaps we can finally get some peace around here,” Walter said.
“Not quite yet, Walter.” Thomas stood apart from the rest with his hands on his hips. “There’s still the matter of the property, and that questionable agreement Mr. Browning claims to have found.”
Abigail gave Justin a cautious glance. Was Thomas going to press the issue now?
“My goodness, Thomas.” Henrietta shook her head. “After what just happened, is now the proper time to discuss that?”
“I think it is.” Thomas rubbed the back of his neck. “That scoundrel Bailey’s visit last night was an eye opener for me. Gave me some clarity on things. Property issues among them.”
“We may want to consult the county lawyers before we reach any decision,” Walter said. “There’s a lot at stake.”
“Fiddlesticks. I don’t need a bunch of lawyers to figure out what’s what for me.” Thomas kicked at the gravel in the driveway with the toe of his boot. “I’ve made up my mind.”
“Nothing has to be decided today,” Walter said.
“It’s as final now as it needs to be,” Thomas said. “So hear me out.” The assembled group gave him their attention, but Abigail had suffered enough controversy. She wanted to take Justin by the hand and go back to her house or his, but she braced herself for the arguments she expected to follow.
“I’m not a young man,” Thomas said. “And for better or worse, it doesn’t look like I have an heir anymore. No one to pass my land to directly when I, when Janice and I, are no longer here.”
There was a brief silence, acknowledging the fact that Toby was missing, but Abigail noted Thomas’s reference to “my land.”
Thomas continued. “I don’t know anything about that document Mr. Browning found, and if you ask me, it’s not worth the paper it was written on. I don’t think it’s reliable.”
“But Thomas—” Henrietta stopped short when Thomas held up a firm hand.
“I don’t care about any agreement our ancestors are supposed to have entered into. They were all sick, anyway, if what I hear is true. But seeing as how there’s no one to inherit my farm, I can’t think of anyone I’d rather see take it off my hands than this young couple here.” He pointed at Abigail and Justin. “Janice feels the same way. You two pretty much pulled our bacon out of the fire last night, and if you hadn’t, well, I don’t want to think about that.”
“You’d have done the same thing,” Justin said. Abigail nodded her agreement.
“But that’s not the way it turned out, and I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t get the benefit of what you saved. Janice and I are willing to enter into a whole new agreement, if necessary. One that says pretty much the same thing as the document Browning found. That is, if you two agree that’s the right thing, and it’s what you want to do.”
Henrietta took Thomas by the hand. “We’ll be one big happy family, Thomas.”
He rolled his eyes in mock annoyance, but then he smiled.
“What do you think, Justin?” Abigail held her breath, waiting for his reaction. He looked down at her, then he gazed out at the fields, forests, and rolling hills in the distance.
“I think we’d have plenty of room here for our children,” he said. “And for a few of your horses, too.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
S. B. Moores is an iconoclastic, award-winning author who reads and writes across many different genres, and who grew up admiring Louis L’Amour. Widely traveled and always looking for a new experience, the author has been a journalist, a biologist, and an attorney, and now lives and writes in Colorado.
The author’s most recent mystery novel, Dead on Cuban Time, is available as an e-book on amazon.com. You can visit the author’s blog at stevenmoores.net.
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