by Griggs, Winnie; Pleiter, Allie; Hale, Deborah; Nelson, Jessica
After an hour’s chaos, the furious noises of the night finally died down to spurts of shouting, the hissing of wet wood, and the forlorn quiet of a finished battle. Clint hadn’t even realized Alice was on the scene until he found her picking glass out of Lars’s bloody hair. She was weary, dirty, but smiling.
“You’re the first dead man I’ve had the honor of stitching up,” she said to Lars. She caught Clint’s gaze with a narrowed-eyed smirk. “Of course, you weren’t ever really dead, so I doubt it truly counts.” Those eyes softened into something all-too-knowing when she said without moving her stare from Clint, “Lars, your sister will be beyond relieved to know you and Clint have not been harmed. I’ve sent word up to the house, but I don’t think she and Evelyn will stay put for long so you’d best get along up there.”
There was nothing Clint would have liked better than to see the relief that would be in Katrine’s eyes. She’d been so brave for so long, never letting her sweet spirit descend into the bitterness of having been caught in McGraw’s vicious crosshairs.
That sweet spirit had become the light of his life. Sometime between her goodbye this afternoon and the moment when Lars had appeared out of the darkness, he’d fixed his life to hers and could never hope to take it back. Even if she chose not to make a life with him—which she very well might, once she knew everything about him—he couldn’t cease to love her any more than he could cease to breathe. If Lars couldn’t see it, Clint would argue with him until he could.
Lars would see it, however, for the look in the Dane’s face when Winona came running up the path toward him said it all. Lars pulled himself from under Alice’s hand, the bandage still untied and trailing from his head as he ran toward Winona, circling the Cheyenne woman in his arms and holding her there.
“Now wait just a cotton-pickin’ minute,” Theo said, coming up to stand next to Clint. “Lemme get all this straight. They were the Black Four,” he said, nodding toward the quartet of bound soldiers slumped on the other cabin’s porch. “He’s not dead,” he continued, pointing to Lars, who was still clinging to Winona, “and he’s with her.” Theo cast his eyes on Gideon, Elijah and Clint. “And y’all risked your lives to save us.”
Clint didn’t really have an answer to that astonishing list. He was too busy thinking about his own startling revelation—one that had nothing to do with Chaucers or Thorntons but everything to do with a stunning blonde woman who probably was wringing her hands with worry back at the infirmary. And not just for her brother.
“I’d say that about sums it up.” Elijah shrugged.
Turning toward his friend, Clint saw a flood of happiness and relief in Lars’s eyes. Their ordeal was over. It was time to build the lives each of them had come to Brave Rock to create, and Clint found himself ready to take the night’s biggest risk.
He extended a hand. “Hello, friend, good to have you back.”
Lars looked at the hand, then at Clint, then sidestepped the handshake to clasp him in his arms. “It is very good to be back.” The Dane’s eyes wandered over to the dark eyes of the Cheyenne woman beside him. “Very good indeed.” They began walking toward the cabin where Reid, Alice and Elijah were packing things up. “You and I have much to discuss, ja?”
Clint stopped walking and returned his hand to Lars’s shoulder. “Far more than you know.”
Chapter Sixteen
A while later, Clint and Elijah stood on the remains of a Chaucer front porch and surveyed the damage. Nearly every window was broken, the front door was in splinters and debris covered most of the yard. For all the Chaucer brothers’ work to raise up decent homesteads, the compound looked more like a battlefield. Still, Clint felt grateful no lives had been lost tonight—or was it already this morning? It had to be well past midnight, probably closer to dawn.
Reid, scraped up and covered in soot, walked up to them after conversing with Gideon. “We got back most of the herd. There are a dozen head of cattle still unaccounted for. I expect we’ll find them somewhere on the other side of the river once the sun comes up.” He took off his hat to wipe his brow as he stared at the one remaining barn wall left standing, now a skeleton of charred beams. “We’d have lost the horses for sure if we hadn’t moved them out of the barn.”
“You still have your land, and those scoundrels are done putting others off theirs.” Elijah placed a hand on the man’s shoulder.
Theo came out from the house, wiggling his fingers inside a thick white bandage. “I’m still shaking my head. If you’d have told me the Black Four was Sam McGraw and the rest of those men—”
“Actually,” Clint couldn’t help but cut in, “that’s exactly what I told you.” Elijah shot him a “behave yourself” look only an older brother could muster.
Theo conceded the point with a nod. “If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes…”
“If I hadn’t seen you with my own eyes,” Elijah echoed as he turned to Lars and offered him a hearty handshake. “I am glad beyond words to know you’re safe and sound.” He pinched the bridge of his nose with his free hand. “Although I have to say, I don’t quite know how to take back a funeral. I reckon Sunday’s sermon may be my most interesting one ever.”
Clint was glad to discover he could still laugh. It was all over now—most of it anyway. There were still some dicey parts to go. And then there was the business of Katrine…
“I am very sorry to put you all through this,” Lars said, catching Elijah’s and Gideon’s eyes in turn. “We were sure it was the only way. It was hard on Clint and Katrine, but they were strong.”
“So you hid Lars from your own family, but pulled him out of hiding to save ours?” Reid looked as if he couldn’t quite pull those facts together.
Clint leaned against a porch post, the adrenaline of the battle giving way to a wave of exhaustion. His hand stung where his gash had broken open again, not to mention the other scrapes and bruises starting to make themselves known. “The Black Four had gone beyond scaring weak or foolish folk out of their claims. They started getting greedy enough to feel like no law bound them at all. The fire they set to Lars’s cabin was meant to be murder, no doubt about it.”
Brett Chaucer walked up, looking as tired and bedraggled as his brothers. “They’re the worst kind of men, those four. Black-hearted schemers down to the last man.”
“I knew once they’d succeeded there, they’d do it again,” Clint went on, glad to know Brave Rock would finally see those men for the crooks they were. “And with more ease every time. No land would ever be enough. If Brave Rock was to know any peace, they had to be stopped—at any cost.”
Brett Chaucer put his finger through a nasty gash in his hat. A bullet had missed his head by inches. “Cost us a pretty penny, I’d say.”
Reid shot his brother a dark look. “Didn’t cost us our lives nor our land.”
“It will be a long while before I stop giving thanks to God for that mercy,” Elijah added. “If ever.”
“And thanks to the Thorntons,” Reid continued, scratching his chin. “Peculiar as that seems.”
“Only a fool would fail to say thanks for what you’ve done here tonight,” Theo conceded with slow words. “And I’m no fool.”
“It weren’t thanks I was looking for,” Clint said, holding Theo’s gaze, “but I’ve never taken you for a fool man, Chaucer. You were only believing what your pa told you.”
Elijah extended his hand to Theo. “Perhaps it is time to lay old grudges down and let tonight be the start of true peace for these parts.”
For a second, Clint couldn’t be sure Theo would take the olive branch Lije offered. He found himself shooting up a single, wordless plea to Heaven that tonight would indeed bridge the gap between these two families. Brave Rock would never be big enough to hold feuding Chaucers and Thorntons. Glory, but knowing his brothers and the Chaucer men, all of Oklahoma wouldn’t be big enough. Gideon’s new family deserved better, now that he was kin to the Chaucers. When he saw Theo begin to extend his hand, Cl
int held out his good hand to Reid. Gideon followed suit, shaking hands with Brett. Chaucers were shaking hands with Thorntons. It was a sight Clint never thought he’d see in all his days.
“Go home to my sister,” Reid said to Gideon. “Tell Evelyn her new husband has my thanks.”
“I’ll gladly do that, but you’d best have some help fencing in those cattle for the night or you may lose more across the river. I can have Lars send word of my safety when he shows up alive and well to Katrine.”
“I’ll take the help,” Reid said.
Alice came out from inside the damaged cabin, wiping her hands on her nursing apron. “Clint and Lars, why don’t you two head on back? I’m sure Katrine will be more than glad to see that both of you made it through unharmed.” She nodded her head toward the gash still bleeding through the bandages she’d put on Clint’s hand half an hour ago. “Well, mostly unharmed.” She looked toward the porch of the second cabin where McGraw and his men were tied up and slumped in varying degrees of injury. “It doesn’t pain me to say it was those four who ended up the worst of the night.”
Clint felt like every rib had been kicked out of place; he heard every joint calling for peace and rest. It seemed a week since he had exhaled or let his guard down. “I’ll be glad to see them behind bars.”
“Bars or no bars, I doubt those swine are going anywhere tonight,” Gideon said. “Most of ’em look as if they couldn’t make it off the porch at gunpoint.”
“You go on now,” Reid said to Clint. “We’ll see to those boys for the evening.”
“No,” Clint argued, even though he felt as though he could lie down right where he was and sleep for a week. “They need to be in the jail now.”
“Let’s let that wait ’til morning,” Reid said with a sideways grin. “I kind of like the idea of them trussed up on my porch for the night like the animals they are.”
Duty insisted he not leave such a task to someone else, but Clint was too tired—and too eager to talk to both Lars and Katrine—to argue the cause of duty tonight. He’d just given nearly all of himself in the service of Brave Rock, and he knew he needed to see the relief in Katrine’s eyes. “Just give me a pair of hours to take care of a few things and gather handcuffs and shackles from the office. I’ll be back by dawn.”
“Oh, no, you take your time,” Theo said, his voice full of menace.
Clint raised an eyebrow and pointed a finger at Theo. “No harm, you understand? I’m not calling for hospitality, but I do expect to come collect four live men when I return.” If justice was to prevail in Brave Rock, it had better start right here. Even the worst of Brave Rock’s criminals needed to receive due process. He needed to know the Chaucers would be men of the law and of their word, even when sorely tempted otherwise.
“Fair enough,” Reid reluctantly conceded, holding up both hands.
When all three Chaucers and all three Thorntons shook hands one final time, Clint found his weariness replaced with a sensation he hadn’t felt in far too long: hope.
*
The sounds had been awful. Every shot had felt like it pelted through Katrine’s chest, every whiff of smoke had sent her pulse racing in fear. She had heard people talk of the war in the most dreadful terms, seen those who carried wounds or lost kin, but never seen actual battles. Tonight, it felt as if a very war had broken out right here in Brave Rock. Lars was there. Clint was there. Those bloodthirsty soldiers were there.
And now she was here, staring at a pot of water that stubbornly refused to boil. Katrine tossed the dish towel on the infirmary table in frustration. “Now that it has quieted, I want to go there. I feel so helpless here.”
Evelyn, who seemed to be having no better success with setting out rolls of bandages, put her hands on her hips. “I know. There has to be something else we can do other than just sitting here, waiting for news. Surely others from town have already gone to help—why shouldn’t we?” Katrine trusted Clint with her life, and he must have had some reason to set things up the way he had. Still, doubts plagued her. Clint’s plot required some kind of secrecy, but those men were too dangerous to face alone or even with Lars’s help. Had she helped Clint by telling Elijah? Or had she hampered him? She turned to Evelyn, desperate for some affirmation that she hadn’t placed Clint in further danger. “I have done the right thing, haven’t I?”
Evelyn’s brows furrowed. “In what?”
“Clint would have asked for help if he needed it. I know he had a plan. But I could not stay silent when I heard the guns. I wish I could know that telling Elijah helped Clint, not harmed his plan.”
Evelyn drew closer. “How could Clint not need all the help he could get?”
Katrine did her best to quickly explain how Clint had been pretending to be on McGraw’s side. Telling the plan again, even now, only seemed to make it feel more dangerous. It all had hung on so thin a thread. Katrine couldn’t help worrying that Lars’s fake death might already be all too true. Why wasn’t he here yet? “I am trying to rely on God’s providence, but I am too frightened.”
Evelyn blinked back tears. “I am frightened, too.” After all, her Gideon had been on that “battlefield,” as well. Her new husband, the man who now stood as a father to her precious son, Walt, might still be risking his life to secure Brave Rock’s future. “And I am glad you came to Elijah.” She took in a deep breath, dabbing at her eyes with one of the bandages she held. “Sometimes a good man is too stubborn to ask for help, don’t you think?” She squinted her eyes shut against a new wave of tears. “When I think of my brothers facing those bandits…”
Katrine put a hand on her arm. “Your brothers had warning. Clint went to them and told them McGraw was coming. But,” she hated to add, “they were not quick to believe him.”
“Oh, I can see how that would happen. They have been fed too many years of false stories against the Thorntons. I doubt they’d believe Clint on the color of the sky as they stared at it, much less this.” The temporary quiet was broken by a loud crash from the end of town where the Chaucers lived, causing Evelyn to flinch and grab Katrine’s hand. “I am glad you sent help,” Evelyn declared, squeezing Katrine’s fingers. “I am. And I believe that help has saved my brothers.” After a second, her dark eyes widened. “And yours. Your brother is there. And alive. Surely God can’t have spared his life only to take it tonight.”
And here everyone had thought the highest stakes had played out on the rush for land. Once the wooden stake hit the ground, the future was secured—wasn’t that how everyone in Boomer Town viewed the promise of the rush? Who would have believed so many would be fighting to keep that land mere weeks after setting up homesteads? All Katrine’s hopes seemed to burn up, just as her cabin had. She covered her eyes with her hands, picturing the two logs Clint had built into the new cabin’s walls. Hope was not burned, merely scarred. She could believe what Evelyn had said. “I want to believe I did the right thing.” I want God to grant life to Clint as well, her heart cried. I want God to grant me a chance at a future with him.
She felt Evelyn tug slightly on her hand. “There’s more, isn’t there? Katrine, what aren’t you saying?”
Katrine felt she would burst if she did not speak the words aloud to someone. Silence had been the enemy for too much of her life. “I worry for Clint.”
“Of course, we all worry for Sheriff—” Realization halted her words. “Oh.” Evelyn put her hand on Katrine’s shoulder. “Yes, of course you do.” A warm smile replaced her tears. “I suspect he…worries for you, as well.”
Katrine felt heat warm her cheeks. “I believe he does. But it is not simple, ja?”
“It never is, is it?” The understanding in Evelyn’s eyes came from experience. To be with Gideon she had overcome a storm of obstacles—not the least of which was the disapproval of the very brothers under fire tonight. She sighed. “It ought to be, but it never is.”
Together they stared at the frustratingly quiet water, worry filling the room as much as the steam begi
nning to rise from the pot. “I don’t know if it will ever be simple,” Katrine said. She dared a look into Evelyn’s eyes. “But I would like the chance to try.”
“Then we shall pray you get that chance.” As another alarming crash sounded across the night air, a few hopeful bubbles slowly began to rise in the deep pot.
Finally, Katrine felt like she’d accomplished one thing in this night of helpless waiting. Boiling water was not much of a victory, but she would take it as a start. She would take this friendship with Evelyn as a start, too, and hold firm to the hope that tonight would be a new beginning and not a disaster. “Everyone in Brave Rock deserves a chance to be happy.”
Evelyn set the lid back on the big metal pot with a declarative clink. “That’s what they’re all fighting for over there. That’s why you did the right thing.”
Chapter Seventeen
As they headed back to town in the wee hours of Tuesday morning, Lars and Clint rode in weary, thoughtful silence. Lars was surely pondering how a dead man rode back into the town that had mourned his passing. As for Clint, he was trying to figure out how to broach the subject of Katrine with Lars—and all she had come to mean to him.
“I… Your sister…” Clint tried to begin, but he couldn’t seem to get any more words out than that. He’d just faced down a torrent of gunfire and found himself terrified of this? This heart business was a fearsome thing. No wonder Elijah and Gideon always walked around with such fool looks on their faces.
“Sorgfult Katrine.” Lars shook his head and sighed with one hand on his chest as if the heartache for his sister’s anguish was a physical ailment. He didn’t have to translate. If the way Clint’s heart felt right now was any indication—half lit firecracker, half leaden stone—maybe that gesture wasn’t so far off.
The sun was coming up and they were both beyond exhausted and eager at the same time. Clint would have preferred to gallop, to get to Katrine as fast as possible, but there was a part of him that needed this settled with Lars first. That part somehow recognized that once he saw Katrine, it would all be lost. He’d be unable to stay away no matter whether Lars gave his blessing or not. Maybe that’s what made him so skittish now—he wanted to go into that moment with Katrine knowing that if she returned his feelings, there was no obstacle.
