by Ralph Cotton
“I do,” said Randall, his voice turning bitter in defiance. “I question God doing this to us. I don’t understand why it all began or how it’s going to end. All I know is that we’re right here in the middle of it, having to do our best to live through whatever God has allowed to happen to us. I don’t curse God, nor do I blame Him. But if He allows a devil like Jessup to act in His name without striking him down, then I have to question Him for it. I most surely do.”
Out front, Callie and Ellis finished sweeping away the footprints and checked their work over thoroughly before turning off the lantern and coming inside. In the doorway to his room, Dillard stood with his hand on Tic’s back, the big hound’s hackles still slightly raised from all the commotion. “Mother, is everything all right?” Dillard asked.
“Yes, Dillard,” said Callie, stepping over and stooping down to him, seeing the questioning look in his eyes. “These people are having the same trouble we had with Father Jessup. We’re going to help them hide from him when he and his men arrive. So we’re all counting on one another to do our part.”
“Don’t worry about me, Mother,” Dillard said. “I won’t tell Jessup anything, ever!”
“I know, Dillard,” said Callie, turning him and directing him and the dog back into the bedroom. Over her shoulder she said to Ellis, “Show them the trapdoor that I showed you the other day.”
As soon as Callie closed the door behind Dillard, the dog and herself, Ellis stepped over to the hoop rug and peeled it back from the floor, revealing a trapdoor leading down beneath the house. He said to Randall and Delphia, “At the first sign of Jessup and his men, the two of you get down here. It leads out through the rear of the house and up into the rocks…from back when the Blackfoot roamed these parts.”
Randall gave him a questioning look. “She said she showed you where it was last week?”
Ellis caught the slip and said, “I’ve been gone for quite some time. I must have forgotten. Are we clear on what to do?”
Randall still stared at him, finally saying just between them, “You’re not Sloane Mosely, are you?”
“Of course I am,” said Ellis.
“Huh-uh, you’re not,” said Randall. “I don’t know what you’re trying to pull, but you’re not him.”
“You’re not the only one trying to get away from Father Jessup,” Ellis said tightly. “Now are you going to trust me or not?”
Hearing only that part of the conversation, Delphia spoke up, saying, “Yes, we trust you. We’ll go down there as soon as you tell us to, Mr. Mosely. Thank you and your wife for all your help.”
Randall seemed to consider Ellis’s words for a moment before snapping out of his thoughts, saying, “Yes, Mr. Mosely, thank you both…and God bless you.”
On the trail a few yards behind Father Jessup and his Brothers, Rudy Banatell turned slightly in his saddle and said to Orsen and Ernie Harpe, “This doesn’t look like a be-back-by-evening chase to me. It’s starting to look to me like this fellow and his wife have outfoxed the good reverend.”
“Me, too,” said Orsen. “I’m all for turning around and heading back to Paradise. Tell the reverend we’ve had enough of his manhunt.” He looked all around, then added in a lowered voice, “We need to clean out that bank and ride somewhere a man can get some whiskey without getting condemned to hell with a back full of whiplashes.”
“Let’s give Jessup a few more miles,” said Rudy, “just to show good faith. If nothing happens before then, we’ll turn back. I’ve got a feeling they will, too.” He gave a nod toward Jessup and his men.
Ahead of the three, Father Jessup slowed his horse at the creekbank, still looking around in the dark for any hoofprints. Beside him, Lexar held a torch down toward the ground. “If you want me to, I’ll ride with some of the Brothers along the main trail while you take some riders across to Mosely’s place,” said Lexar.
“No,” Jessup said firmly, “we’ll all stay together!”
“But, Father,” said Lexar, “always before we split up if it looked like someone might get away from us.”
“Nobody’s getting away, Lexar!” Jessup growled. “Do you hear me? Nobody is going to get away, and we’re not going to split up this time. I won’t take a chance on the woman being harmed!”
Behind them Rudy and his men rode up on the tail end of the conversation, hearing Lexar say to Jessup, “I wouldn’t want her harmed either, Father. But what so special about this woman, if I might ask?”
Jessup spun an angry stare his way. “This woman is carrying my child! That’s what makes her so special!”
Rudy and his men stopped and listened quietly.
“Oh, I had no idea, Father,” Lexar said, not knowing what else to say. The other Brothers stared in stunned silence.
“Yes,” said Jessup, “there you have it. All these wives, all have the power to bear as many children as I want. Yet this is my only one…my only son, if I dare reveal what the Lord has promised me.”
The Brothers all looked at one another, then back at Jessup in reverence at what they had heard. “God be praised,” one of them whispered.
“Yes, praised indeed,” said Jessup, seeing the good response he’d received from the Brothers. “Now keep this in mind when we run those two down. The woman must not be harmed. She must be given special care! She carries my only son!” He spurred his horse out across the creek, saying back over his shoulder, “Now on to Sloane Mosely’s place. We’ll see if he’s knows anything of these two!”
Rudy whispered sidelong to Orsen, “How the hell does he know he’s got a son coming?”
Oren grinned. “You heard him. He said the Lord told him…even promised him to boot.” He leaned closer to Rudy in his saddle. “I’m telling you, Rudy, it’s getting time we rob the bank and put this place behind us. These religious fellows are apt to go hogwild nuts on us at any time.”
Rudy grinned in reply. “The crazier they get, the better I like it.” He slapped his reins to his horse and rode forward into the shallow creek, following Jessup and the Brothers. “If he’s headed for Sloane Mosely’s, I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
Chapter 12
At the first sight of the torchlight moving up from the creekbank, Ellis and Callie hurried the couple down through the trapdoor beneath the house. Before climbing down the ladder, Delphia reached out, grasped Ellis by his forearm and said, “Mr. Mosely, we’re putting our lives in your hands.”
“I know,” said Ellis, speaking to her and looking down the ladder past her to Randall. “Don’t worry. I won’t let you down. Just remember if everything sounds all right up here, stay put. But the minute it sounds like something might be going wrong, get out of there, take to the hills and find cover for yourselves.”
“We will, Mr. Mosely, and much obliged,” Randall called up to him as he helped Delphia down into the darkness with him.
Closing the trapdoor and smoothing the hoop rug across it, Ellis turned to Callie when she said to him from the window, “Here they come! Dillard, go into your room and stay there.”
“But, Mother,” said the boy, “Tic and I can help!”
“Please, Dillard,” Callie said calmly, in spite of tenseness she felt at the though of Jessup and his men riding into her yard. “Staying out of sight is helping.”
Before Dillard could protest, Ellis said, also in a calm voice, “Dillard, I’m counting on you and Tic to stay out of sight. Will you do that for me?”
“All right,” Dillard said with reluctance, pulling the hound by its leather collar toward the bedroom door. “Come on, Tic, let’s go.”
After the boy led the dog into the room and shut the door, CC Ellis took off his shoulder holster, hung it loosely over his shoulder, then drew the big Colt, checked it quickly and shoved it back into the holster. Seeing the curious look on Callie’s face, he explained, “It’s the middle of the night. It might look strange, me stepping out already wearing my shoulder harness.”
She only nodded without answering.<
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Stepping over to the window, Ellis looked out at the torchlight and the riders moving into the yard single file and half circling the front of the house. “Here we go,” he said quietly to Callie. “Let’s just play it like we played it in town. We’ll do all right.”
“I hope so,” Callie replied.
Before Ellis could say anything to further reassure her, a voice called out from the front yard, “Sloane Mosely! The Reverend Father Malcom Jessup is out here. He would like a word with you!”
Sitting back from Jessup and the other riders, Rudy Banatell chuckled and said to Orsen sitting atop his horse beside him, “Right about now I bet ol’ CC is wondering what all he’s took on, looking after Sloane’s wife for him.” He stepped his horse closer to the front of the riders, for a better view, as the front door opened slowly in the glow of torchlight.
Standing inside the door, Callie held the shotgun close to her and watched CC turn to face Jessup and his men. Lifting the loose harness from his shoulder, Ellis looked around at the gathered riders as he slipped his arm through it and buckled it. Looking like a man disturbed in his sleep he said, “You pick a peculiar time of night to come calling, Mr. Jessup.”
Beside Jessup, Brother Searcy called out sharply, correcting him, “It’s Reverend Jessup, not Mr. Jessup.”
Ellis shrugged slightly. “Suits me. Now that we’re meeting face-to-face, what can I do for you, Reverend Jessup?”
Searcy started to speak but Jessup silenced him with a gesture of his large hand. “My apologies for having awakened you at this hour, Mr. Mosely,” said Jessup, “but one of my wives is missing, taken from our family by a scoundrel and a debtor. We found two spent horses along the trail. Since there are few ways across this valley we’re checking with everyone.” Looking all around, he settled his eyes on the barn door. One of his men had ridden and circled the barn, holding a torch down close to the ground. “Yours would appear to be the most likely place to have come looking for fresh horses.”
The rider by the barn door, rose up in his saddle and shook his head no, indicating that he had seen no sign of any fresh footprints. Jessup noted his gesture; so did Ellis, who said calmly, “In that case, feel free to check inside my barn. I’ll join you, although if anybody but me tried to take my stallion from the barn, I would have heard quite a ruckus.”
“And you have heard nothing?” Jessup asked, his eyes boring into Ellis’s.
“Not a sound all night, Reverend,” Ellis said, poker-faced. He took a step forward on the porch, as if to step down. “Let’s take a look. If I have horses missing, this man you’re after will have more than you and your men on his trail. I hate a horse thief.”
Listening, Rudy smiled to himself and sat watching Ellis, knowing him well enough to see that he was hiding something. But whatever it was, he was doing a good job of covering it from Jessup and his men. “That’s our boy,” he whispered faintly to himself, the torchlight glistening in his wary eyes.
“That won’t be necessary,” said Jessup, relaxing a bit in his saddle. “Again, I apologize for awakening you and your family.” His eyes searched the closed door as if trying to pierce it.
“If I see these two in the next few days,” said Ellis, “I’ll get word to you.”
“Rest assured, Mr. Mosely, this poltroon will not manage to run free that long. I’ll have his hide…and of course the hide of anyone he tells me tried to aid and assist him. And believe me, he will tell me.”
“I’ve heard all about your whippings in the streets of Paradise, Reverend,” said Ellis, “so I’m sure he will.” He took a step back on the porch. “Now, if there’s nothing else I can do for you…you’ll excuse me, please.”
Jessup almost turned and gave his men a signal to back away. But along the trail behind them, a voice called out, “Father Jessup! Wait! I’ve found something!”
The rider had fallen back and searched the rocky ground off to the side of the trail while the others rode into the yard. Now he came pushing his horse forward at a quick pace, almost sliding it to a halt beside Jessup. “What do you have there, Brother Arnold?” Jessup asked, reaching out and taking a strip of soiled gingham fabric from his hand.
“Found it stuck to some brush back there,” the rider said, sounding excited by his find. “It could be hers!”
“Indeed, it could,” said Jessup, examining the two-inch scrap of fabric closely in the flickering glow of torchlight. “Any footprints?”
“No, Father Jessup,” Arnold Yuley said. “Just that! But it’s white, just like the dress she was wearing!”
“But no footprints, eh?” Jessup said idly, almost to himself, raising his eyes back to Ellis on the porch.
“That’s been out there for days,” Ellis said, unshaken, trying to keep up his confident demeanor. “It belonged to my wife.”
“Oh…?” said Jessup. He studied Ellis’s eyes in the torchlight. “You must live well, Mr. Mosely, if your wife can afford to leave a good piece of patch-work lying in the wilds.”
Reminding himself to make no excuses, Ellis said, bluntly, “Yes, we do live well. My wife doesn’t have to patch her dresses—not that it’s any of your concern.”
Jessup stiffened a bit in his saddle; his men did the same. Rudy stifled a dark chuckle and whispered to himself, “Easy, CC, don’t overplay your hand here.”
“Perhaps there is something more you can do for us, Mr. Mosely,” Jessup said, his tone turning colder as he clenched the two-inch strip of cloth. To the men around him he said, “Search this house thoroughly! If my wife has been here, I want to know it!”
“Uh-oh,” Rudy said, backing his horse a step, seeing the look on Ellis’s face.
Ellis’s hand came up quickly, the big Colt cocked and leveled in Jessup’s direction. The men froze. “The first man that tries to come into my house will be the first man to die trying to come into my house,” said Ellis. “Call them down, preacher, or I’ll open you up.”
“Wait, men!” said Jessup, seeing that the Colt was pointed straight at him, too close for him to escape. A man like Sloane Mosely couldn’t miss at this range.
The men eased back down into their saddles and sat tensely, careful not to lower a hand close to their holstered weapons.
“I demand permission to search your house, Mosely!” said Jessup, still pushing, but not nearly as hard. “What do you have to hide?”
“I’m hiding nothing,” said Ellis. “But I’m not a man who submits to another man searching my house. Privacy is something I hold dearly.”
“I serve the Lord, Sir!” said Jessup. “The Lord rules this country and he has seen fit to give me dominion over it, and all who dwell herein!”
“You forget yourself, preacher. I’m not one of your flock like the rest of these sheep.” Ellis looked from one to another, making it clearly known that the word sheep was by no means meant to be a compliment. “I told you that cloth belonged to my wife. Unless you’re calling me a liar, you better take my word for it. That’s all you’re getting here.”
“I demand proof!” Jessup bellowed, pointing a finger at Ellis. “These men must be allowed to—”
His words cut short at the sound of the front door creaking open. He stared as if dumbstruck as Callie Mosely stepped out onto the porch, her hair still down, brushed and glistening upon her shoulders.
“Oh, now that’s a good touch,” Rudy murmured to himself. Orsen and Ernie were too transfixed at the sight of the woman to hear him.
Ellis looked at the folded dress in Callie’s hands, then said in a strict, husbandly voice, “What are you doing out here?”
“Trying to prevent trouble with our good neighbors, the Believers,” she said boldly, stepping past him barefoot, her robe slightly low on her right shoulder, her pale bare skin aglow in the torch light. She stepped down from the porch and out to Jessup’s horse. Holding the dress up to him, showing him the torn hem where a piece of cloth was missing, she said, “Father Jessup, forgive my husband. He wakes up cross in the
middle of the night.” She offered an alluring smile. “Sometimes it takes hours before I can get him back to sleep.”
Jessup’s men almost gasped at her words, at the images her words suggested. Jessup gave his men a stern look, then let his eyes sweep over Callie, as if he could not control them. He lifted the dress from her hands and held it close to his face, breathing in the scent of her from it. “Yes, it does appear that this could be the dress that the strip of cloth came from.”
“I told you. It is the dress,” said Ellis, keeping the right amount of pressure on the situation. “Now take your hands off it.”
“Please, husband,” Callie said softly. “Father Jessup is a holy man. He means no harm.”
Glancing at Ellis, then looking back down at Callie, at her bare shoulder, her soft eyes in the torchlight, Jessup said, “Don’t judge your husband harshly, ma’am. If you were my wife, I would not allow another man to hold your dress either.” Dropping the dress into Callie’s hands, Jessup stepped his horse up closer to the porch, saying to Ellis, “I am indeed a holy man. Otherwise, against your and your wife’s bidding, I would order my followers to ransack this house and see what secrets you might be keeping from me.”
Ellis only stared, seeing that things were about to wind down, and that he and Callie had won.
Callie offered a smile that bordered on suggestive. “In the future we’ll look forward to seeing you again, at a more favorable time of evening, Reverend,” she said.
Jessup smiled, barely able to control himself in the presence of a woman wearing only her night-clothes. He said down in a quiet tone just between himself and Ellis, “It’s unfortunate that we meet face-to-face under these circumstances, sir. Perhaps in the future we’ll better acquaint ourselves with each other and what we do or do not hold dearly.”
“Perhaps,” Ellis replied, tight-lipped.
Jessup turned his horse and gestured for his men to follow him. “Let us not intrude here any longer,” he said, smiling down at Callie in her robe as he spoke. “A beautiful young lady must get her rest.”
