by Loree Lough
He believed he could predict her reaction. Her big dark eyes would widen with disbelief and fear. She’d gasp with surprise. Those strong yet delicate hands would fly protectively to her throat. Then she’d lick those full pink lips and throw back her slender shoulders, saying, in effect, that she wasn’t the least bit afraid of him, a convicted killer. Not Bess Beckley!
He wanted to hug her for that.
Several minutes ticked by, and neither of them said a word.
“Why so quiet all of a sudden?” she asked.
He tugged at the brim of his hat, bringing it to rest lower on his forehead. “Guess I just don’t feel much like talkin’.” She couldn’t know, not now, not ever, what dark thoughts were lurking in his brain. From the corner of his eye, he saw her stiffen in response to his gruffer-than-intended response, as if to say, ‘well fine, then, if it’s silence you want, it’s silence you’ll get!’ Chance breathed a sigh of relief.
She folded her hands primly in her lap, held her head high, and stared straight ahead. Try as she might, Bess did not understand this man. He angered and aroused and frightened her, all at the same time. She wondered for the hundredth time what horrible secret he hid, and if, when exposed, it would explain his quick-silver moodswings. So lost in thought was she that Bess never noticed he’d increased the horses’ pace.
Chance was deep in thoughts of his own. He hadn’t meant to hurt her feelings. But then, he hadn’t meant to let himself grow this fond of her, either. He remembered how helpless he’d felt when the jurors made their decision. He didn’t have much left at that point, but at least he’d managed to stay in full control of his emotions through it all. He never begged for mercy, even when the judge’s gavel slammed hard on the bench and sealed his fate. Never whimpered, even as they shackled and chained him like a rabid dog in the smelly jail wagon. Never shed a tear, though he knew his young life was about to end. Way he saw it, he had all of eternity to cry about the unfairness of it. He’d show those so-called good Christians what pride and dignity was all about!
So why, then, couldn’t he control his feelings for Bess?
For the next two hours, the silence was broken only by the clip-clop of the horses’ hooves and the crunch of road grit beneath the wagon’s huge iron-rimmed wheels. Now and then, as they passed a clump of trees or a thicket, they heard bugs buzzing and birds chirping.
Several times, he opened his mouth and took a breath, thinking maybe he’d say the first thing that came into his head, to get things back on track. But, just as quickly, he’d clamp his teeth together. If he didn’t know what had gotten them off track, how did he expect to get them back on again?
Besides, in this frame of mind, he didn’t dare start bumping his gums. Dozens of times, he’d seen her zero-in on the only sad face in a room full of people. She not only knew how to find out what caused the sour expression, but managed to say exactly the right thing to sweeten it, too. Nope, he told himself, in this mood, you’re better off stayin’ mum.
Begrudgingly, he admitted it had taken every bit of strength to keep his past a secret from her this long. He yearned for some of the peace and comfort others seemed to take from her caring concern. Why, if he had a penny for every time he’d nearly spilled his guts during one of their long, friendly conversations, he’d have a couple of extra dollars in his pocket for sure.
He wasn’t accustomed to admitting fear, but this strange power Bess seemed to have over him scared him, and Chance didn’t like it one bit.
Suddenly, he was distracted by her rummaging in her black velvet drawstring purse, angrily mumbling under her breath…something about a place for everything and everything in its place? He dared not ask her to repeat what she’d said.
After a moment, she pulled a tiny pocket watch from the bag. She clucked her tongue, then clicked the watch open. “It’s nearly eleven,” she said, snapping the gold case shut again. “Hungry?”
Slowly, Chance faced her. “I could eat, I reckon,” he said, shrugging as he returned his attention to the horses.
“That’s not what I asked, Mister Man-of-Few-Words.”
With that, he looked her square in the eye. It surprised him to see a wide, friendly smile on her face. Surprised him even more that he was smiling back, despite his foul mood. “Yeah, I’m hungry.”
A note of disappointment rang in his heart as she bent to retrieve the wicker basket at her feet, because in doing so, she’d deprived him of looking into her eyes. A man could drown in those big brown eyes, he’d told himself on more than one occasion. And you’d best be careful, Chance ol’ boy, ‘cause you’ve never been a particularly strong swimmer….
She peeled back the red-checkered tablecloth that lined the wicker basket. “Fried chicken. Corn muffins. Apples.” She met his eyes to add, “And lemonade, but it’s warm, I’m afraid.”
And why not warm lemonade? he wondered. It would go perfectly with his warm cheeks. His warm palms. The warm sensation that swirled deep in his chest every time she cut a glance in his direction.
“Shall we stop, or do you think we should eat as we go?”
He couldn’t think of anything he’d like better than to curl up on a blanket with her under some big ol’ shade tree. But they had a good two hours’ ride ahead of them yet, and at least an hours’ worth of business to tend to once they got to Baltimore. If they stopped now, even for half an hour or so, it’d be dark before they got back to Foggy Bottom. And he didn’t want to risk driving the team along these rutted roads on a moonless night. Not with Bess’s birthday surprise from Micah lashed to the back of the wagon….
After handing him a golden-fried chicken leg, Bess grabbed the reins. “I’ll drive while you eat,” she said, matter-of-factly. “We’ll make better time if we take turns.”
She looked straight ahead as she spoke, and he marveled at her ability to read his mind. Marveled at her ability to control the team, too. Chance took a bite of a crisp drumstick. He hadn’t quite finished it when she handed him a corn muffin. Just before he polished that off, she gave him a shiny red apple. Bess seemed to enjoy waiting on him, doing for him, taking care of him. Man could get used to this kind of pampering, he said to himself, grinning.
His bad mood disappeared as quickly as the warm lemonade.
***
He dropped her off at the bank and promised to return for her in an hour. Her birthday surprise, Micah had confided to Chance, was a player piano. According to the bill of sale, it would be waiting for him on Dock C at the Baltimore harbor. “Just look for the biggest crate there,” Micah had said, slapping Chance’s back. Sure enough, a huge wooden box labeled BECKLEY stood just inside the warehouse door.
As Chance steered the wagon as close to the opening as possible, he noticed a big man, leaning against a piling on the pier nearby, frowning at him from beneath a dingy sailor’s cap. “Don’t mean to bore holes through ya,” he said, squinting through the blue-grey haze of cigar smoke, “I’m just tryin’ to recollect why you look so familiar.”
Chance didn’t have to figure out why he looked familiar to the man…last time he’d seen that ruddy face, it had been unconscious on a deserted road just outside of Lubbock.
Climbing down from the wagon seat, he pulled his hat low on his forehead, walked a wide circle around the former deputy, and handed the bill of sale to the warehouseman. “I’ll give you a hand getting that monster into the wagon,” he said, grinning and gesturing toward the crate. He tried hard to sound jovial and matter-of-fact, like a man who’d simply come here to pick up his piano, like a man with nothing to hide.
The foreman followed Chance’s gaze. “Yep. Gonna take a couple of strong backs to load that one,” he agreed jovially. “Jasper,” he hollered into the bowels of the musty warehouse, “get your sorry self out here an’ help us, why don’t ya?”
Jasper, wiping his hands on a grimy rag when he rounded the corner, took his time crossing the dusty floor. “What’s in the box?” he wanted to know.
“None o’
your bu’iness,” his boss said. “Just grab that cart over there and let’s get the beast loaded.”
Jasper seemed in no hurry to wrench his back, and took his time delivering the metal-wheeled skid. Chance pretended he’d forgotten all about the ex-jailer, and focused on Jasper. On Jasper’s boss. On the boxed piano. But he couldn’t help wondering what Yonker was doing so far from Texas. Couldn’t help wondering what would happen if the man should remember who he was….
Chance and the dock workers slid the huge crate onto the skid, then rolled it up a makeshift ramp into the wagon. Half an hour later, after a fair amount of huffing and grunting, the piano was safely secured to the wagon and ready for its long ride back to Foggy Bottom. Chance shook each man’s hand and thanked them for their help, then climbed back into the driver’s seat and breathed a sigh of relief. He thought for sure the Texan would put two and two together, but it seemed he’d been spared…this time.
He released the brake stick, and just as he prepared to flap the reins to spur the team forward, the big man sidled up to the wagon. Chance held his breath. His heartbeat doubled and his palms grew damp as he waited for the inevitable to begin.
“I’d recognize a Texas drawl anywhere.”
Chance swallowed hard.
The ex-jailer lay his hand on the brake stick and frowned, as if trying hard to remember.
Chance licked his lips. “I’m from Texas, you’ve got that much right,” he said, smiling nervously. He extended his hand. “Don’t run into many folks from back home way out here,” he added, increasing his drawl.
“Where you from in Texas?” he asked, suspicion glinting from his dark beady eyes.
“Eagle Flats,” Chance lied smoothly, withdrawing his still unshaken hand. “Little town just—“
“—east of the Mexican border,” he finished, as if to brag he knew the big state like the back of his hand.
Chance nodded. “You?”
“Lubbock.” Warning and danger mingled in his deep, gravelly voice. He spat a stinking wet wad of tobacco onto the dusty dock and put a finger to the corner of his mouth to dam up the black liquid oozing from the chaw of tobacco bulging from his cheek. “I gotta tell you…you’re the spittin’ image of a man we tried to hang back there.”
Jasper whistled. “Hang? For what?”
“Because he was a mangy, no-good dog,” Yonker answered. “Jail wagon overturned on the way to the gallows, and the polecat ran off and left us out there to die in that heat.”
But he hadn’t left them to die; he’d left them with two full canteens…and their hats!
“We lost our jobs for lettin’ him get away. Why, I been huntin’ him for more’n ten years now. If there weren’t a fat reward for draggin’ his sorry bones back to Texas, I’d hang him myself, wherever I found him.”
The ex-deputy stepped away to grab a coil of rope, hanging from a piling on the dock, and swaggered back toward Chance. “I bet that bounty has doubled by now,” he said, forming a lasso with the rope. “I bet I’ll be a hero when I bring in W. C. Atwood….” The Texan’s harsh laughter echoed, then faded, into the deep, dark bowels of the open warehouse.
Chance had been wrongly accused of murder, and it had altered the course of his entire life. He’d hated running from the law all these years, because running had made him look guilty as sin. But he hated the idea of dying for a crime he hadn’t committed even more. Did he hate it enough to kill this man, if it came to that, to guarantee he could continue to live his life…miserable as it was?
In the next moment, he had his answer.
The guard doubled up his fist. “Y’can’t fool me, Atwood,” he steamed, reaching for Chance’s shirt.
“I don’t know what you’re yammering abo—“
“Get your sorry self down here so I can hog-tie y—“
“You don’t wanna do that,” Chance warned, his eyes mere slits, his voice dangerously low as he wrapped callused fingers around Yonker’s wrist.
“Why, you low-down back-shooter,” he said malevolently, grabbing Chance’s neckerchief.
“I never shot a man—not even in self-defense, not here, not in Lubbock.” He increased the pressure on the deputy’s wrist. “But if I did,” he snarled, glaring into the man’s fear-widened eyes, “man like you’d be smart to watch his own back, don’t you reckon?”
Jasper had summoned a constable at the first signs of a fight. “What’s goin’ on here?” the officer demanded. Sun glinted from the polished brass buttons of his dark blue jacket.
“This here fella is a killer,” the Texan growled. “Been on the run fer ten years.” Facing Chance, he repeated, “You ain’t Chance Walker. You’re W. C. Atwood, and you killed Horace Pickett in Lubbock, and if you laid the wanted posters with your face on ‘em end to end, you could walk on em, all the way back to Texas. You deserve to swing.” Without breaking eye contact with Chance, he told the policeman, “The Texas Rangers and the U.S. Marshalls will back up my story. Just wire the sheriff in Lubbock if you don’t believe me.”
“That’s the smartest thing anybody has said so far.”
At the sound of her soft, musical voice, every man’s head turned toward Bess. How long had she been standing there? Chance wondered. How much had she seen…and heard?
She faced the uniformed officer and, hands on her hips, said, “This appears to be a clear-cut case of mistaken identity. If a telegram will clear the entire matter up, then I think we should send it.” She glared at the dirty, burly Texan and added, “Immediately.”
She turned to Chance. “Well, have you done what Pa told you to do?” she asked, forcing a bossy, sassy tone into her voice. Without waiting for his response, she rolled her big eyes at the officer. “Good help is so hard to find these days.” She smoothed her skirts and daintily tugged at her high, lacy collar. “He was supposed to come down here to fetch a delivery for my father, not pick a fight with the likes of him,” she said, her voice icy and deliberately haughty. Suddenly, Bess was all sweetness and light again. “Do you know my father?” she asked the policeman. “Micah Beckley….”
The constable stood a little taller in response to what appeared to be blatant flirtation from the pretty young woman. “‘Course I do, miss,” he said. Then, with a jerk of his thumb, he gestured toward Chance. “You say this man works for your daddy?”
With a tired sigh, she nodded. “He’s worked for my father for years…since he was practically a boy.”
The gruff Texan began to protest.
“He’s from Texas, I’ll give you that much.” And cutting a glare in the deputy’s direction, she tacked on, “He never managed to lose that low accent, I’m afraid….”
A moment of tense silence passed before she added, “Well, now, shall we head on over to the telegraph office? I’d like to get home before dark, and that’ll never happen if we stand here bickering like children all afternoon.”
“That won’t be necessary, Miss Beckley.” The constable removed his high-domed hat and tucked it under one arm. Then, grinning, he added, “It is miss, isn’t it?”
Bess smiled and fluttered her long, dark lashes. “Why, yes, it is. But please, it’s Bess. Just plain Bess.” She avoided looking at Chance’s eyes when she said it, but could see by the way he shook his head that despite the heat of the moment, he, too, remembered what he’d called her on his first day at Foggy Bottom.
The policeman blushed and grinned and twirled his nightstick.
She stepped up to him and hid her mouth behind a white-gloved hand. “I don’t want that filthy man bothering my foreman for another moment,” she whispered. “It’s hard enough to get an honest day’s work out of him without a lot of unnecessary distractions….”
The officer glared at the Texan. “I don’t recall seein’ you in town before.”
The beer-bellied ex-deputy retrieved his cap, slapped it against his thigh a time or two to shake off the dust, then plopped it onto his head. He pointed to a ship, docked a few piers down in the harbor. “I’m
a merchant marine, takin’ a tour of your fine city, officer. That’s all.” Then, almost as an afterthought, he tensed. “Hey, why are y’all treatin’ me like the criminal. I’m not the one who was s’pozed to hang for murder….”
“Hang? Murder?” Bess echoed, her voice trembling almost as much as the hand, pressing against her forehead. “I’m afraid all this shouting and violence has made me feel as if I might swoon….”
The constable was beside her in an instant, one arm around her slender waist, one hand supporting her elbow. “You’re upsetting the lady,” he growled at the Texan. “Now, get on out of here, or you’ll get a tour all right…of the inside of the Baltimore jail!”
As he lumbered toward his ship, the Texan leaned close to Chance and rasped through clenched tobacco-stained teeth, “Keep your back to the wall, Atwood, ‘cause one of these days, you’ll be alone….”
Splinters of steel glinted in Chance’s eyes and the muscles of his jaw tensed, relaxed, tensed again, but he said nothing.
Bess didn’t know what had been said during the quick, heated exchange between the men, but Chance’s narrowed, hateful glare frightened her more than she cared to admit.
She had waited for him in front of the bank for ten minutes, and couldn’t imagine what could be taking him so long. But it was a beautiful, breezy day, and since it was only a short distance from the bank to the harbor, Bess decided to walk to the dock and save him having to steer the wagon back through the bustling city streets.
She’d heard the unmistakable sounds of a fistfight long before she saw it. Worse, she heard that horrible man say, “You ain’t Chance Walker. You’re Walker Atwood, and you killed Horace Pickett in Lubbock.”
The man insisted Chance looked like the fellow he’d been hunting for…for ten years, and hadn’t Chance been away from Texas…for ten years? Mistaken identity? Coincidence? Bess didn’t think so.
