“Why, girlie-girl, what’re you doin’ back so soon? Where’d you steal them clothes from?”
Desperately she tore at the hand clutching her hair. “Get out of here before they come back.” She waved her arm toward the front stairway. “They’re right behind me.”
“You never was a good liar.”
He threw her down. She crashed to the floor, landing hard on her hip and gave a sharp cry. He slammed his boot onto her right shoulder to keep her in place. She howled.
“Let up! That’s where he shot me!”
“Where? Here?” He dug his boot in harder.
Glaring up at him, shaking with terror, dizzy with pain, Jodee thought, there he was. Ugly weasel face. Dark dirty hair cut short. Beard growing in, sparse on his chin, bristly under his nose.
“Where’s the cash box, girlie-girl?”
“What cash box?” She kicked at him.
He yanked hard on her hair.
Yelping, sick with fear, she gave a sneering laugh. “And what’s that getup you’re wearing? Green britches.You look like some kind of scarecrow.”
Burl kicked her. “Got ’em off a stupid little man in the mountains. Offered me a ride in his buggy. Gave me a lecture on buttons and sundries enough I had to shoot him just to shut him up. I drove his buggy and horse into a ravine. If you want to know, I been all over town in this outfit. Tipped my hat to the marshal himself. Sold buttons to the best ladies in town and a storekeep who paid in advance. I been livin’ high, girlie-girl.” He nudged her with the toe of his boot. He spoke with his mouth twisted dangerously tight. It looked swollen on one side. “Tell me where the goddamned cash box is. You know the one I mean. You seen it at the cabin.”
Jodee remembered Avinelle clutching a cash box in the marshal’s office. That had been Avinelle’s cash box at the cabin? She choked back fear. “You went through that hole in the floor like a rat,” she said, desperate to think. “Get out of this house ’for the marshal gets here. He’ll shoot you dead. I’ll dance a jig on your grave.”
“Tough words, girlie-girl.” Burl jerked her to her feet as if she were made of rags.
She threw herself against him, hoping to push him off balance and make him fall down the stairs.
“Don’t think so!” He grabbed her right arm.
It felt like he was pulling her arm out by the roots.
“That hurt?” He twisted harder. “I want that cash box, and I want it now.”
With all her strength Jodee screamed, startling him. Maybe somebody outside would hear. Screaming her throat raw, she threw herself toward the staircase, half afraid she’d fall to her death. Burl wasn’t much taller than herself, but he was stronger. She grabbed his sleeve and tried to heave him against the railing. Shrugging off the knapsack’s strap handle, he cuffed her head with his gun. She saw stars. In a raucous clatter, the knapsack tumbled down the stairs, spewing spoons and silverware all the way to the entry floor.
“This way,” Burl said, dragging her back toward the widow’s room. “Show me.”
“No—”
He threw her across the room. She landed by the bed. He dragged her around to the far side where he had the trunk with the broken hinges open, contents scattered. Still clutching her hair, he crouched. He looked under the bed. He aimed his gun at the bureau of drawers where everything was falling out from his frantic search earlier. He shot the crystal drop lamp, shattering it.
“Where is it?” He aimed at her.
Jodee squeezed her eyes closed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He threw her down. She hit the floor hard. Bracing herself, trying to decide what to do next, she stared down at a yellowed certificate laying on the floor beneath her hand. The name Fanny Healy was written across the top in a bold script. Jodee tried to make out more words, but Burl pushed her backwards. She fell into a small table covered in whatnots that toppled over with a crash. He rummaged in the drawer.
“You been here long enough to know every bit of this place,” he said, pulling fistfuls of little medicine bottles from the drawer and throwing them at her. “I been here a while, too, girlie-girl. Listening. Heard all that boo-hooing over the dead lady. Saw my chance when you all traipsed off to the funeral. Mighty short funeral, you ask me. They treat you like one of their own, don’t they now? Gave me an idea. We could do this other places. You set yourself up working someplace. Find out where all the loot is. I come along….We could live high.” He grinned at her, then sobered and leveled the gun at her again. “So now you tell me where the goddamned cash box is.”
Biding her time, Jodee lolled on her side. There had to be something—
Home and Industrial School for Girls—
Burl grabbed the certificate. “What’s this? Stocks and bonds? They’s like paper money, I hear.” He threw the papers onto the bed.
“Turn loose of me,” Jodee whispered. “I don’t know nothing about bonds.”
Struggling to sit up, she picked up another certificate. Eleanore Hollingsworth Home and Industrial School for Girls, New York State, 1847. It stated Fanny Healy, aged fifteen years, was certified as a seamstress.
Burl yanked the drawer from the dressing table and upended the contents into Jodee’s knapsack. Rings and brooches rained to the floor.
“Don’t use my knapsack!” She kicked Burl squarely in his shin.
As he hobbled out of range, she saw another certificate. Maggie Healy, aged fourteen years, certified as a lace maker. Underneath was a tintype likeness of two little girls in ragged smocks. The younger was barefoot. By her timid posture it had to be Maggie as a child of eight or nine. On the back was written in pencil, Fanny and Maggie Healy, 1842.
Jodee picked up another paper. Theia Hollingsworth’s marriage certificate to Harold Ashton, June of 1858 in New York. Another likeness—Widow Ashton in an elaborate wedding suit beside a grinning gentleman. Another of a beautiful child wearing foot-long corkscrew curls. Young Avinelle and her famous smile.
Widow Ashton was Fanny Healy. She and Maggie were sisters, and Burl had stopped ransacking the dressing table to watch her study the photographs.
He leaned in, trailing the muzzle of his gun alongside Jodee’s face. “What’re them things you’re looking at, girlie-girl? You find something valuable?”
Jodee narrowed her eyes. “All this time,” she crooned, trying to look at him, “all this time I never guessed how stupid you are. You can’t read a word, can you, Burlie-burl? You couldn’t even open an empty safe.” At his gasp, she slapped the gun aside and leapt to her feet. She went at him, claws spread, her mind crazy with rage. “You killed my pa! I wouldn’t tell you where Avinelle keeps her cash box if you kissed my feet.”
He fought hard and slammed her against the wall. He knew just where to put his hands, too. She forced herself to laugh.
“You wouldn’t know what to do with me if I gave you half a chance.”
He howled. They battled into the hall again. She glanced at Avinelle’s room across the hall, thinking she had to keep Burl from going in there, realizing too late, she’d given away the very place he wanted to ransack.
Letting her go, Burl shoved her into Avinelle’s room. She landed on hands and knees beside Avinelle’s unmade bed.
“You’ll be sorry you ever set foot in this house,” Jodee growled. “Marshal Harlow will shoot your rotten gizzard.” Avinelle’s room would be easy to pillage, she thought. She took no trouble to put away her valuables. Her clothes were strewn over furniture and floor. Set squarely in the middle of her dressing table lay a plain grey metal cash box.
Jodee’s heart sank.
Burl seized the cash box and shook it.
Drained of hope, Jodee watched him drop to the floor. Laying his gun aside, Burl placed the cash box on the floor between his outstretched legs. Grinning like Christmas, making certain she was paying attention, he dug a wrinkled ribbon from his green plaid button drummer’s vest watch pocket. At the end dangled a small key.
Jodee
went limp with disbelief. She watched in horror as Burl waved the key at her, making nasty little triumphant faces at her, letting his tongue hang out and laughing. Then, with great ceremony, he inserted the key in the lock and twisted. Without making a sound, he lifted the lid and stared inside.
Wondering if she might dash past him, and kick him senseless in the process, Jodee watched him grab a few greenbacks from the cash box. Instantly his expression soured. “What the hell?”
Clutching handfuls of her skirts, Jodee leapt to her feet, kicked, missed, and vaulted through the doorway, landing hard at the top of the stairs. She slid halfway down, nearly falling out of control when she saw Avinelle venture through the shattered front doorway below, her round eyes taking in the shards covering the entry floor.
Not now! Oh, dear God, not now!
Grabbing a baluster, Jodee stopped herself from pitching the rest of the way down. This couldn’t be happening. This just could not be happening to her!
Widow Ashton pushed in beside Avinelle. Maggie crept in close behind. The three saw Jodee hanging twisted on the stairs with Burl coming down behind her in a mad scramble. Burl took aim. Maggie gave a hair-raising shriek.
Pushing past screaming Maggie, Corbet lunged, drew, and fired.
A thrill of fear and hope mixed with dread crashed through Jodee’s body as Burl slammed hard against her back, falling, arms, legs flailing. She felt his blood spread warm on her back. Twisting, jabbing wildly with her elbow, she tried to make him fall the rest of the way down. His shot went wild. The blast was deafening. Catching himself, struggling to remain on the step where he landed, Burl threw an arm around Jodee’s neck and yanked her close in a stranglehold.
He dug the gun’s barrel into Jodee’s bleeding temple.
“Where the hell’s the money that was in the cash box?” Burl yelled, his voice cracking. “All the money. Thousands—” Clutching Jodee in front of himself like a shield, he picked his way down the remaining steps. “Tell me or I kill her.”
Avinelle’s mouth hung open. She looked for all the world as if she were smiling just a little, as if her baited trap to catch a thief had worked better than she could ever have dreamed.
With a savage tightening of his arm across Jodee’s throat, Burl took another step but slipped on a spoon. His boot shot forward. He wrenched back hard, sliding, lost his hold on Jodee and cartwheeled sideways down onto the broken glass below. Jodee tumbled after him, landing on top of him with a wail of revulsion. Nearly in her face, her knapsack lay open on the first step, the silver creamer visible within.
Burl tried to fire again but another deafening gunshot rang out from the direction of the drawing room. Thinking she was being shot at, Jodee twisted away. Burl arched up behind her. Another shot above her, and he hit the wall and slid down until he lay still.
Maggie screamed.
All Jodee saw was Corbet’s face.
He wasn’t looking at her. His gun wasn’t smoking. He hadn’t fired. He gawked at the gaping knapsack, at the scattered silverware. When he lifted his eyes to hers, she saw no hint of recognition in his eyes. He looked as if she were a stranger. His eyes went cold with disbelief.
He saw her for a thief.
Seeing her pistol deep in the knapsack, Jodee lunged and grabbed it. Days ago, on the back porch, she’d loaded it. Taking aim at Burl she pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. The pistol was too old to fire.
Corbet tore it from her grasp and threw it aside.
Widow Ashton slapped Maggie into silence.
Panting with heartbreak, Jodee struggled to get as far from Burl as possible. For several seconds there was blessed silence. It was over, Jodee thought, wilting. Her life—her new life—was over.
Burl’s hand flexed.
He flung up his arm and pulled off one more shot that hit the tall case clock. Another gunshot hit the ceiling. A rain of plaster came down. Maggie went flying toward the kitchen, howling.
Avinelle cringed behind Corbet, but he pushed her away. Teeth bared, he advanced on Burl, who leveled his gun one last time at Jodee. Grabbing Jodee, Corbet flung her across the floor. She slid headlong into the doorway to the drawing room. Another shot whizzed by so close she recoiled and cracked the back of her head against the door frame. A few feet away, Deputy Brucker lay on the drawing room floor, a smoking gun in his hand. He fired again, and Burl fell dead.
Brucker winked.
Slack-jawed, Corbet glared at Brucker. Then he turned his dark gaze on Jodee. He might as well have killed her with his eyes.
As if a gun battle took place in her entry hall every morning, Widow Ashton asked, “Is the man dead, Marshal?”
Numb, Jodee watched Corbet level molten eyes on the woman. She shrank away from him. Corbet watched Avinelle dissolve into tears. He grabbed the knapsack and dumped the last of the plunder onto the floor. Silver calling card tray. Golden scissors. Spoons.
“Burl was here when I—“
Jodee didn’t have enough strength to say another word. There was no use. Corbet believed what he saw. She knew what she had seen, too. He thought she left the funeral early to help Burl. She felt disillusioned beyond words.
Breathing hard, Corbet flung down the empty knapsack. A war began behind his eyes. His lips pressed hard against his teeth.
Taking a ragged breath, Jodee let her acid gaze travel from Corbet to Widow Ashton and finally to Avinelle. Dripping blood, Brucker struggled to his feet. His spurs caught on the fringe of the Turkish carpet. He gave Jodee an insolent smirk she didn’t understand. Nothing she’d done in the past weeks made any difference. They believed what they wanted.
Well, they could all go straight to perdition. She was done with Theia Ashton and Avinelle Babcock and poor sobbing Maggie the lace maker. She got to her feet, pushed back her disheveled hair, and dashed tears from her face.
She didn’t bother to look at Corbet.
She hoped never to see his face again. He thought her capable of robbing her benefactors. Well, she was done with him, too. She knew she’d never be able to prove herself to any so-called decent folk. She knew what she was. She was decent, and that was all that mattered.
She edged past Corbet and started up the stairs. She got all the way up to the guest room before she heard talk begin downstairs. Brucker and Corbet, their voices deep and harsh. Widow Ashton and Avinelle, their voices shrill.
Jodee tore off her skirt and petticoat. She pulled on her old britches over her long white drawers. Dreaming of lace trimming—fool girl, she thought. No more nonsense. She stuffed her feet into her boots.
There lay Corbet’s blue shirt she’d worn in the jailhouse. She couldn’t bring herself to touch it. She wished she could say goodbye to Hanna, but maybe it was better not to see the woman again. She might not be able to bear the condemnation in her eyes.
Seventeen
Wearing her pin-tucked blouse tucked into her old britches, Jodee headed down the stairs of Avinelle's house, wondering if her locket and gun were still at Quimby’s store. She could hold up the place and get them back.
Damn fool notion, she thought, disgusted with herself. She wasn’t going to hold up no damned store. Her heart hurt so bad she thought it might be nice to get good and drunk like her father used to do when he couldn’t bear another moment of missing her dead mother. She shook her head. She hated whiskey.
“Jodee?” came Corbet’s voice. “Are you all right? Did Tangus hurt you? There’s blood all over your back.”
Jodee went still. Corbet was talking to her? Asking damn fool questions like he hadn’t just shattered her heart? She dashed across the glass-strewn entry but Corbet was ready. He captured her in his arms and pulled her tight as she fought him.
“Let me go!”
“Wait. Stop it, Jodee. Listen to me.”
“Varmint!” she screamed. “I didn’t do nothing wrong. I didn’t help him. As God is my witness, I did not help Burl Tangus rob this house.”
She lunged for the door, but Brucker was there, l
eaning against the splintered frame, holding his bleeding arm. She saw Avinelle and her mother huddled in the parlor with a hiccupping Maggie between them. Hardening her heart, Jodee shoved past the deputy.
“Hold on,” Brucker said, grinning. “Didn’t you notice I was on the floor, waiting to help you? You didn’t see me? I heard every word you said, you know. You might try being a little friendlier to me now. I can vouch for your innocence.”
She didn’t know what vouch meant. She didn’t trust him an inch, either. Heard all she said? What did that matter? She couldn’t remember what all she said, good or bad.
Corbet touched her elbow. “Brucker says you risked your life to stop Tangus.”
Brucker flexed his wounded arm. “When you came in I knew by the way you moved you weren’t with that fleabag.” More blood dripped. He cussed softly. “One more place to ache when it rains.” He gave her a wink. “Where you going in that bloody shirt and old britches? You look half ridiculous. I say you would’ve died before letting Tangus take that loot.” To Widow Ashton, he said, “You ladies better get upstairs. Tangus tore up the place. Said he was sick of sleeping in your cellar, drinking peach brandy.”
Widow Ashton hiked her skirts and stomped upstairs to investigate.
“You’d better go with her,” Jodee said to Avinelle. “There’s papers you might find interesting.”
Brushing past Corbet without a glance, Avinelle followed her mother up the stairs.
Jodee went into the parlor where Maggie sat abandoned. “The bad man’s dead,” she said to Maggie. “He won’t bother us again. You don’t have to be scared no more.”
Maggie just looked at the floor, shivering.
“Jodee, I have to talk to you,” Corbet said, interrupting. “Brucker, can you make it to Doc’s or do you need help?”
“I’ll send someone for the body.” Brucker started out the door.
Her Outlaw Heart Page 22
