Brokken Yesterdays

by Lynda J. Cox

  He set the plate on the bunk, but gripped the fork, staring at the tines. Realizing he was planning to pick the lock on the manacle with the utensil, he shook his head. She said she was letting him go. She was in such an all-fired up hurry to have him leave, she didn’t even stick around to eat the meal that woman...Molly, yeah, Molly, brought. Victoria’s breakfast was on her desk, untouched.

  The question was why was she letting him go. There wasn’t any doubt he’d escaped from somewhere. It wouldn’t take much to learn where he’d been. Until he was long gone from this town, he was willing to play the role of the man everyone seemed to think he was. His look-alike wasn’t a convict and probably didn’t have wanted posters all over creation. His gut twisted with assuming that identity, though. The thought of raising his hand to any woman made him physically ill. Striking someone as unique as Victoria was totally out of his realm of comprehension.

  Even though she apparently preferred trousers over skirts, he would be hard pressed to say she wasn’t feminine. If anything, those trousers revealed her curves more than a skirt would. She also had the respect of the town’s folk, from what little he saw in her interaction between that kid last night and with Knight. A woman sheriff...A chill lifted the hair on the back of his neck. Was she letting him go just so she could kill the man she thought him to be in a claimed jail-break?

  He dropped the fork next to the plate. A quick death from a bullet would be better than what awaited him if he ended up in Colbert’s clutches again.

  Chapter Five

  Molly’s café was busier than usual when Victoria stopped on the short walk to her house. She caught Mr. Reed’s eye across the noisy room and gestured to the carrier. He nodded at the narrow parson’s table under the window. Victoria set the basket next to a vase full of freshly picked wildflowers and left.

  An ordeal. That’s what the walk from the café to her house felt like. Or what she imagined a forced march would feel like. Victoria shook off the sensation. She didn’t want him in her town. She most certainly didn’t want him in her house, ever again, or anything else that went along with that man.

  She walked into the house, the cool interior a marked change from the already warm morning. A small wooden crate in the back of the armoire held the clothing Jonathan left behind when he mounted up with the local Texas brigade six years ago. As she lifted the trousers, she shook them out, just in case any small critters had made a home in the fabric without her knowledge and then tossed them onto the bed. Her eyes had to be playing tricks on her. The trousers seemed too short legged to be Jonathan’s.

  She held a shirt up by the shoulders and lifted it at arm’s length. If Jonathan regained all the weight he’d lost to become as horribly emaciated as he was, the shirt would still be much too large for him. All of Jonathan’s height was in his torso, wasn’t it? Why did she seem to think his legs had gotten longer in the intervening years? Could it be these garments weren’t his?

  A firm mental shake drove that thought away. Of course, they were his. Over time, between the humidity and just being stored, the material in the trousers had shrunk. That had to be why she assumed they were too small for him. She wadded the shirt between her hands and threw it onto the trousers draping her mattress. Two pair of socks, suspenders, and a full union suit followed. A pair of brogans, older and already thinning on the soles and so left behind, were the last of his belongings in the armoire.

  She dragged the small wooden crate out and replaced the items with much less care than they had originally been stored away. With a grunt, she hefted the box onto her hip and made her way back to the jail.

  Jon quickly pulled the sheet over the lower half of his body, covering what the night shirt didn’t hide.

  Victoria dropped the wooden box unceremoniously onto the floor next to the cell door. She pulled her revolver, cocked it, and pointed it at Jonathan. She tossed a single key to him, and it landed on his lap. “That’s the key for the manacle around your wrist. Unlock it.”

  “Are you this cautious with every prisoner?” His gaze skipped from her face to the unwavering revolver and back to her face. He never even acknowledged the key. “Or is this treatment reserved just for me?”

  “Unlock it.” She gestured with the muzzle toward the key. Answering him only invited a discussion she didn’t want and doubts she didn’t need.

  He picked up the key and shoved it into the locking mechanism. When the manacle fell away and clattered to the floor, Victoria used the muzzle to gesture, again. “Stand up and go to the corner. Put your back in the corner and don’t move.”

  His shoulders slumped, and a soft, huffing breath broke from him. “I’m not going to hurt you, Victoria. I’m not that man...anymore.”

  “Get up.” She gestured again. “Now.”

  Jonathan stood and what color he had in his face drained. He caught the bars to steady himself. Victoria jumped back a step, cursing herself for the response, locking her knees to hide how much they tried to knock. With an effort, he straightened and then made his way to the back corner of the small cell.

  Without lowering the revolver, or taking her gaze from him, she backed to her desk. She glanced at the key ring just long enough to locate it and the cell key. Keeping the muzzle aimed at him, she pulled open a small drawer and took out the locket and letter that had been in the pocket of the rags he wore when Knight brought him to the jail. She then turned her sight to Jonathan. If it weren’t for the walls, he might not be standing. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and his color was still ashen.

  Her conscience railed at her. She nudged the muzzle at the end of the bunk. “Sit down.” She berated herself for the softening of her voice.

  He offered a curt nod of acknowledgment and sank into the thin mattress and then leaned against the wall behind him, his eyes closing. In the sudden quiet in the jail, his ragged breathing rasped. The chattering of the ring when she shoved the key into the lock and twisted the tumblers sounded abnormally loud.

  She hesitated to open the door.

  “Put the gun down.” He lifted his head off the wall, meeting her gaze. “Please. Trust me enough to believe me when I tell you I’m not any threat to you, darlin’.”

  The endearment shattered her wavering doubts and silenced the angry voice of her conscience.

  “I don’t trust you. I’ll never trust you again.” Victoria dropped the locket and letter into the box, jerked the door open, and kicked the small wooden box into the cell. She slammed the door with a resounding clang, and viciously twisted the key, relocking the cell. Only then did she holster her gun. “Get dressed. You’ve got five minutes. I’ll wait outside.”

  She stormed her way to the door, halting when, the words barely audible, he said, “I’m sorry.”

  Her shoulders stiffened with her effort to not turn to him. She pulled the door open and stepped onto the boardwalk. She couldn’t get him out of her town soon enough. Part of her wanted to believe him, believe he wasn’t that man anymore, believe he had changed. Another part screamed he always said he was sorry and then twisted it around so it was her fault he’d lost his temper. He’d promised, again and again and again, if she just did this or that he wouldn’t raise his hand to her.

  Deborah Hale drove by, waving in greeting. Mechanically, Victoria returned the gesture. In the distance, the mournful wail of an approaching train rolled to her. She closed her eyes, gathering up her composure. It took the train a good ten minutes to arrive in town from the point where its whistle was first heard. She’d give him until the train pulled into the station.

  JUST WHERE IN THE NAME of heaven was he going to go? Jon glanced at the key still in the lock but didn’t move to open the door. He didn’t have a single red cent to his name. The simple exercise of putting clothes on left him shaking with exhaustion. If he tried to walk from town, he wasn’t going to get very far.

  If Colbert was still searching for him—as if that man would give up—the search hadn’t led to Brokken. Yet. So far, his luck was holdin
g. He was a little more than amazed Victoria was just going to cut him loose.

  A train whistle pierced his wandering thoughts. Before the last note faded, Victoria pushed the door open and reentered the jail. She stopped and glanced at the stack of papers she had tossed onto the desk. Her hands dropped to the desk top, palms flat against its surface.

  “I can’t leave if you don’t open the cell.”

  Without looking at him, her head bowed to the desktop, she said, “Key’s still in the lock.”

  He reached through the bars, took hold of the key, and hesitated. “Are you going to play this like a jail break and shoot me while trying to escape?”

  Without looking up from the stack of papers, she shook her head as if she didn’t believe his hesitation in walking out of the small jail. “I want you out of my town.”

  “Come and unlock the door, please.” He stood and backed to the far corner. “I don’t want to risk a shot in the back.”

  She flipped another page. Every line of her form stiffened, seemed to freeze. Then, she straightened and walked to the cell door, never once looking at him. Instead of unlocking the door and opening it, she removed the key. “You should have taken the chance when you had it, Jonathan. I would have let you walk out, and I wouldn’t have bothered to come after you. You almost got away.”

  “My name isn’t Jonathan.”

  Her eyes widened, and her eyebrows rose even as a smile, completely devoid of amusement, twisted her lips. She backed away from the door and leaned her bottom onto the desk. The key ring clattered onto the old wood, sounding like so many links in a chain being gathered up.

  “It’s Jon. Jon—”

  “Aliases used include Jon England, Jon Michaels, Andrew Michaels, Jon Michael Andrews.” She reached behind her, picked up a paper, and continued to read. “Jonathan English is wanted for prison escape, killing a guard, and wounding another.”

  Those were wanted posters all over her desk. His escape had finally been reported. It was something he knew Colbert would have been loath to do, because it meant he had to admit he’d lost a prisoner and been unable to follow the trail. Jon sagged against the wall. If he wanted even a chance at surviving beyond the end of the week, he had to talk fast. “I never used those aliases. The man who stole my name, my identity, he uses them. My name is Ishmael Jonathan Michael Andrews, though I go by ‘Jon’, and I was born on Christmas Day, 1839, in Fairfax, Virginia.”

  Her unamused smile grew and iced over. “The man who stole your name. Of course. You couldn’t possibly be responsible for any wrong doing. Just when did this happen?”

  “At Tullahoma.”

  Victoria recoiled as if she had been struck. Something about that place resonated with her. Jon continued, not taking the time to puzzle through why Tullahoma meant anything to her, “I was leading a charge against a group of Hood’s mounted infantry. I rode up on a man, and it was like looking in a mirror. We were both startled but before either of us could react, a cannon ball hit the ground between us. I was thrown from my horse and when I came to, it was night. My shell jacket was gone and my bedroll and everything in it had been taken.”

  Jon fell silent, recalling the absolute confusion, the nauseating pounding in his head when he regained consciousness that rainy night in Tennessee, how the stench of death mingled with the sharp scent of gunpowder and rolled across the landscape in waves pushed by the rainy breeze. Victoria’s icy smile faded.

  “Go on,” she urged him.

  “Do you believe me?”

  “Not one word, but I’m enjoying the story.”

  “What’s the point of continuing if you don’t believe me?” He sank onto the bunk. “You’ll want to send a telegram to Alva Colbert at Watonga Prison in the Indian Territories. That’s where I escaped from.”

  Victoria placed the poster on the desk and leaned forward. “When did you say you were born?”

  “Christmas Day, 1839.” He tried not to hope that maybe she was believing even a small iota of what he said. Her expression betrayed nothing, not even disbelief.

  “Explain this: How did you come to have my locket and a letter I wrote if you aren’t Jonathan English?” She caught the edge of the desk under her palms and gripped the wood so fiercely her knuckles gleamed white.

  Jon dropped his head. “When I woke up, everything that was mine was gone. The real Jonathan English left his shell jacket behind. In the inside breast pocket was that letter, the locket, and a small snip of hair.”

  Her eyes widened ever so slightly with the mention of the small lock of hair that had been with the other two items. “So, why didn’t you go back to the Union side?”

  He threw a quick glance at her. She had eased her grip on the edge of the desk, and her brow was furrowed. Tossing all his cards onto the table seemed his best recourse. “I lost my memory for a few hours. I didn’t know who I was, where I was. I assumed the jacket was mine, but it didn’t fit exactly right. And it didn’t feel right. I knew I wasn’t a captain in the Confederacy. I knew it all the way to my bones, but when I put the jacket on, I found the locket and the letter.”

  He debated telling her how disgusted he was that he had to wear that loathed color, or how his opinion of the man who’d dropped his shell jacket and left behind such heartfelt mementos—he assumed running from the field of honor—had been as low as he’d ever thought of any man.

  “If you’d been caught wearing that shell jacket—”

  “I would have been summarily executed as a spy, once it was realized I wasn’t English.” Jon lifted his head, staring across the cell at the far wall. “I crawled under a bush, deciding to stay where I was until daylight. I hoped with a little bit of sleep, my memory would return. I woke up again shortly before dawn and tried to make my way back to Union lines. I kept the jacket with me, as long as I was in Confederate held territory.”

  “Why?” The question snapped between them.

  “English and I looked enough alike, if I was discovered behind Confederate lines, I hoped I could bluff my way past any pickets or troops.” Jon pulled a hand through his hair, tugging the overly long strands from his brow. “I didn’t know how alike we appeared until I almost walked right into a small Rebel camp. Several of the enlisted men called me by his name. Before I could back-track, I overheard a few of the soldiers talking about what had happened overnight in the Union encampment. One of the men said some sort of demon had been set on the Yankees. They found five men and two officers dead in their tents, their throats slit and their...” He sucked in a deep breath, forcing himself to continue. “Their hearts were cut out.”

  He looked down, startled to see how fiercely his hands trembled. “I made my way to the Union lines, buried the jacket in some brush. Before I could walk into the camp, I heard one of the commanding officers ordering a full out search for me. The orders were to bring me back alive, so he could personally shoot me between the eyes. If I resisted, they had orders to bring my body back.”

  “It was Jonathan.” The fear lowering her voice to little more than a whisper echoed the horror he still felt all the way into the marrow of his bones.

  “I’ve always assumed so. I later heard that I had been seen leaving the last tent, covered in blood, and grinning from ear to ear.” Jon unsuccessfully repressed a deep shudder. “I panicked. I knew I’d never live long enough to even protest it hadn’t been me. There were seven good men who had been butchered in their sleep. I got the jacket again and made my way west. I went to Indian Territory, hoping I could just disappear there.”

  Victoria shifted her weight from foot to foot. “What happened?”

  “I was working on a small cattle ranch after the war ended and a drifter came through. He recognized me because he’d been a private in one of the companies attached to Rosecrans’s command. I didn’t know it at the time. That night, eight men burst into the bunk house, beat me half to death, and then dragged me to a territorial judge. They couldn’t try me for the murders in Tullahoma because the only man w
ho had seen me leaving the tent had been killed in the Wilderness. So, they charged me with raping the daughter of the rancher I worked for.” A short laugh broke from him. Even to his own ears, it rang hollow. “Where they found my lawyer I don’t know, but he was some Texan taking his family north to the Wyoming Territory. They forced him to defend me. He told me he’d rather see me hang.”

  “Did you do what they charged you with?”

  Jon knew his life hung in the balance on how he answered her pointed question. He slowly shook his head, then looked over at Victoria, levelly meeting her demanding glare. “I never even looked at her, not in that way.”

  Victoria pushed off the desk and walked to the door of the jail.

  “Telegraph Alva Colbert, Watonga Prison, Indian Territories.” Jon said, trying to swallow the huge knot in his throat. “Though, if you’re going to send that telegram, I’d rather you open this door and kill me clean, with one shot, while I’m trying to escape.”

  Chapter Six

  Victoria stared out the window in the door. She couldn’t force her hand to reach for the knob. It all rang true. No one would create such an outlandish and elaborate story and expect it to be believed. It had to be true. He wasn’t denying he was Jon Andrews. He wasn’t denying he’d escaped prison—not that he could deny that. What he was denying was his guilt.

  Still staring out the window, she softly asked, “Did she lie about being raped?”

  “It never went to trial.” His voice broke. “Majors—he was my lawyer—told me if it went to trial, I would hang. They offered a deal. He told me it was the best I could hope for. Ten years hard labor in a rock quarry. And I took the deal, so that she wouldn’t be forced to lie. A lie would destroy her, because the only way she could have been made to lie was if her father was threatened. He’s all she has.”

  She craned her head over her shoulder. Jon sat with his elbows on his knees, his much too thin shoulders hunched into himself, head bent to the floor. Against her better judgement, she asked, “What do you mean her father is all she has?”