Dance Hall Road

by Dorothy A. Bell

  The dimples in her cheeks faded when she turned her brown eyes to pin down the sheriff with her sharp gaze. “By the way, good morning, Sheriff—how’s the missus? Is she still delivering pies to your prisoner?”

  The sheriff’s ruddy face practically glowed red-hot with embarrassment. Petra and everyone else in the room stared at him, waiting for him to respond to the jibe. An unguarded flicker of real regret crossed his face. Then he straightened his shoulders, heaved a weighty sigh, and met Doreen’s challenging gaze head on.

  “At least she can make a pie, not to mention a decent cup of coffee to go with it,” is all he said.

  Doreen’s eyes fell to her folded hands, and the room went pregnant with an uncomfortable silence. Petra wasn’t sure what had just happened. But she thought perhaps Doreen’s life wasn’t as unfettered as it appeared. They all, surely, had felt it. She’d felt an undercurrent, a ripple of electricity between Doreen and the sheriff. He was a married man and Doreen, she was…a businesswoman. Petra sensed deep, and possibly tender, feelings between the two—feelings that, she would bet, had no hope of ever seeing the light of day.

  Chapter Nineteen

  For the first time since entering the room, the sheriff glanced Petra’s way. She stood behind Doreen’s small round kitchen table with her back to the wall. She’d remained quiet, hoping to blend in with the wallpaper, and resented Matt for making a big production of pulling out a chair for her and, in so doing, calling her presence to the sheriff’s attention. Petra nervously patted Gabriel’s back, keeping her eyes down to Gabriel’s fuzzy head.

  The sheriff’s sharp, brown eyes studied her, when he addressed her, she flinched. “Miss Yurvasi, I had a suspicion I’d find you here. I’ve been praying you’d show up. I want you to understand, I’m not a prayin’ sort of man.”

  Doreen snorted, then made a half-assed attempt to hide her disrespect.

  Petra peered up through her lashes at the man and caught the crushing glance he sent Doreen. In return, Doreen gave him a cheesy grin and stuck her tongue out at him. Petra felt the urge to run and hide, but Matt, standing behind her, put his hand on her shoulder.

  The sheriff turned his attention back her way. “You know…I just might have to change my mind about that—about prayin’, that is.”

  The sheriff tilted his head and shoulders toward the little man beside him, but his gaze didn’t leave her face.

  “You should meet the prosecuting attorney, Thomas Rhodes. Thomas, come sit down here. I think you have some questions for Miss Yurvasi.”

  The little man hesitated, cleared his throat, then nodded to Petra and took a seat beside the sheriff.

  Matt removed his hand from her shoulder and stepped away. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him go to the stove where he took up the coffee pot and brought it back to the table to serve everyone. He didn’t sit down until he’d warmed Petra’s cup of tea with more hot water. Coming back to take a chair, with the butter and a jar of strawberry preserves, he sat down, his demeanor at odds with the mood at the table.

  “Well, dig in everybody,” he said.

  If everyone felt as pressured as she, then Matt’s pancakes were bound to be ignored.

  Putting his elbows on the table, the sheriff held up his hand to refuse the pancakes as Buck began to pass them around.

  His refusal confirmed Petra’s assessment of the situation.

  “I had my breakfast. My curiosity won’t keep another minute. I’d like to hear how and why you disappeared. It would’ve been helpful if you’d stuck around, young woman. Maybe we could’ve had this business all wrapped up by now. Maybe we could’ve prevented some deaths.”

  Taking everyone by surprise, Matt reared to his feet, lunged across the table, his nose coming within inches from sheriff’s face.

  “Hey. If Petra had stayed, she wouldn’t be sittin’ here, she’d be dead. You got questions, and she’s here to give you answers. You don’t have any idea what this woman’s been through. And until you do, you don’t get to pass judgment.”

  Petra reached out and covered his arm with her hand. Buck turned his head, his eyes softening as he met her beseeching gaze. Reluctantly, he sat back down in his chair, and Petra settled Gabriel in her lap, allowing him to play with her spoon.

  Lifting her eyes to address the sheriff directly, she said, “No one is more surprised than me that I’m alive and breathing. That my son is alive, Sheriff. The explosion rendered me deaf. Being heavy with child at the time, and after what I’d witnessed, my instinct told me to run and hide.”

  Petra didn’t know why she felt so calm, numb, devoid of emotion. “If you like, I can start from the beginning. It might be best.”

  She looked to Mr. Rhodes. He nodded, offering her a timid smile before pulling out a black notebook and a lead pencil from the inside of his coat pocket.

  “You sure, Petra?” Matt put his arm around the back of her chair, and offered the baby his finger without taking his gaze from hers. She nodded and took a sip of her tea.

  In Matt’s eye’s she recognized pity, regret, and something—for a moment she could almost believe he loved her, wanted to spare her this.

  Drawing on his strength, she closed her eyes and journeyed back in time—into the void she had created in her head to get through this. Giving herself permission to take a breath, she opened her eyes, stared across the table and focused on Mr. Rhode’s pencil.

  “At age eighteen I believed everything Kurt told me. He promised to marry me. At the age of nineteen, I lost my virtue and my self-esteem to Kurt, still believing in everything he said and did. Nine months ago, nearly four months pregnant, I finally came to my senses and faced the truth. At the age of twenty, I’d grown up at last, but too late. I’d seen and heard too much.”

  She recounted how and why they put her in the cage at the mine entrance, clothed in burlap sacks, no shoes, to keep her out of sight and under control. “The blast shook the pylons and boulders hit the cage, tipped it over and I simply crawled out. I didn’t have to go far, I climbed in the back of a wagon. With all the dust coming out of the mineshaft no one saw me. I hid under a tarp while everyone else ran into the mine. The sheer force of the blast caused my hearing loss. The wagon carried me into Baker City, then I ran, Sheriff. I just ran. Why would I stay? As far as I knew, no one cared about me, about how I was, where I was, what was happening to me. Yes, I should’ve sought you out, told you of my suspicions. I didn’t have proof. I still don’t have proof. I overheard their conversation, how they were salting the mine, how they planned to extort money from investors. I’m the only one who knows they shot that poor boy in the back, and poisoned the coolies. I have nothing to back up my story, nothing at all.”

  Mr. Rhodes appeared fascinated, his eyes wide and staring into her face, his pencil suspended over the paper in his notebook. “Where were you going? You can hear now?”

  Somewhere, deep down inside her, Petra found a smile for the little man. “I simply headed east and north using the Wallowa Mountains as my compass. I thought I would go home to Missoula. It seems silly now.”

  She shook her head, appalled by her ignorance. “By the second day, I’d lost my way, nearly frozen, and weak. On the third day, I headed down into a canyon looking for shelter. In pain, I knew my labor had started. I also knew I wouldn’t survive, and my baby wouldn’t survive. I had no hope, you see. I was dead. I’d been dead for several weeks, caged in the mine.”

  Involuntarily, she shivered as the memory of that time washed over her. “I climbed up the side of the canyon and crouched down out of the wind behind a boulder.” Her voice cracked and her throat constricted with a thousand needles of pain with the remembered terror.

  Matt gave her an encouraging squeeze, his fingers moving up to stroke the tense cords in her neck.

  She tilted her head into his palm, savoring the warmth and his strength. “Matt found me—found me and my newborn son, and took us to his house. We’ve been there all this time. He’s taken good care of
us. I regained my hearing almost a month ago. I consider all of it, surviving the explosion, giving birth to Gabriel, Matt—everything—a miracle.”

  Coming to the end, she didn’t know what else to say. They were all silent. Waiting, she didn’t know for what, she felt compelled to add, “A few days ago Mr. Cummings delivered the newspaper and the mail. We read Beau was in jail. I’m here, but not because I want to be here. I’d rather be anywhere else. But Beau Laski and Kurt have hurt a lot of people. I don’t know what I can do. I can tell what I heard, and what I witnessed, but I don’t think it’ll be enough. It’s too little too late. The Laski brothers have always been able to get away with extortion, murder, and all the heinous crimes in between. They’re slippery, and can wiggle their way out of a knothole. I know, I’ve seen them do it time and time again. Which brings up the matter of Kurt’s death.”

  She leaned forward, her elbow resting on the table, pinning the sheriff down with her gaze. “Are you sure, Sheriff—are you sure Kurt is dead? Did you see the body? Did anyone actually see the body?”

  Clearly affected by her story, it took the sheriff a moment or two before he could make his reply. “I didn’t actually see the body, no. I got the doctor’s report saying he died of a fractured skull, a punctured lung, and various broken bones. I saw the casket. They buried him up on the hill outside of town. You can go out there and see the grave. With wounds like that, I wouldn’t have expected him to survive.

  “Beau suffered a fractured hip, a busted shoulder, and plenty of bumps on the head. They were both laid up for better than a month after the explosion. Kurt couldn’t have survived, Miss Yurvasi. He just couldn’t have.”

  The sheriff shook his head, then said, “According to Doctor Oldmen, Beau’s paralyzed from the waist down.”

  Every fiber of her being told her Kurt lived, he wasn’t dead.

  Petra narrowed her gaze and said, “I don’t know who might be in the casket, but if no one saw the body, then no one can say for certain Kurt is dead.”

  Mr. Rhodes spoke up again, interrupting Petra’s plans for flight as panic washed over her like a wave surging up onto the rocks at high tide.

  “You may well be right on all counts, young woman. We’ll need more than just your account. All we have at the moment is hearsay evidence. I’ve been studying all the complaints filed before Kurt Laski’s supposed demise, and they are very compelling. However, the authors of those complaints have either died, disappeared, or now just flat out deny ever making the complaint in the first place. What we really need is a confession from Beau Laski. And I would love to capture the man who’s in charge of the Laski machine—the one who sees to it Mr. Laski’s orders are carried out. I have no idea how to go about such a feat, but it’s what we need if we’re going to stop the ruination of this town. With you here, we now have enough to go to trial. But I fear your testimony, as horrific as it is, won’t hold much weight with the judge or a jury.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Buck had a few ideas he wanted to run by the sheriff, but first he needed to get him off, away from the women. They’d run out of things they could discuss and Petra looked on the verge of collapse. When Gabriel demanded his mid-morning snack, Petra excused herself to take him to her room to nurse. Doreen began to pick up the dishes, but not before stuffing one of Buck’s flapjacks in her mouth.

  Buck thought this a good time for the men to make a break for it. Outside, chaos still reigned, men shouted angry curses, herders continued to whistle orders to their barking dogs, noise and confusion filled the streets. So far, no one had come knocking on the door looking for the sheriff.

  Buck figured Bollo to be more than ready for a smoke, so he motioned for the men to follow him down the short hall and out the back door. Huddled together, shoulder to shoulder on the back stoop, the sheriff lit up a cheroot, then offered one to Buck and to Mr. Rhodes. Mr. Rhodes happily accepted.

  Buck, who had never taken up the habit, waved the cheroot aside and got down to it. “Have you seen your deputy this morning?”

  With eyes narrowed, the sheriff struck a match on the inside sole of his boot, then nodded. “You the stranger who helped Adella get Pete home?”

  Buck nodded over the top of Mr. Rhodes’s balding head. The man stood between them like a mushroom growing beneath the boughs of two shady oaks. The little man puffed energetically on his cheroot, his thick-lobed ears taking in every nuance of the succinct exchange.

  “Miss Ridenhour thinks your days are numbered,” Buck said.

  Bollo grinned. “Yeah, I kind’a got that idea already. I’m not sure why they haven’t taken me out before now. Then again—I’m not much of a threat these days.” He shrugged his big shoulders. “Maybe they just don’t think I’m worth the lead.”

  Bollo took in a long drag from his cheroot, held the smoke in his mouth, and then let it out in perfect doughnuts of smoke.

  Mr. Rhodes chuckled. Delighted and inspired, he tried to emulate the sheriff’s display, but to no avail.

  Buck fanned the air to clear it of smoke. “Miss Ridenhour doesn’t think much of Doctor Oldmen. I suppose you looked into the man’s credentials.”

  Again the sheriff nodded.

  Buck and Mr. Rhodes waited with bated breath to hear what the sheriff had to say.

  “I had Pete ride over to North Powder last week to send out a couple of feelers. I thought it might be better for my health if I didn’t let anyone from around here get wind I was making inquiries. I should hear back today. I’m sorry I didn’t do it right away. I knew something wasn’t right about the man the minute that sidewinder hit town.”

  Mr. Rhodes coughed, his round, hound-dog eyes watering. Making a face, he flicked the cheroot over the wooden rail of the stoop into the grass. Wheezing, he fought for control. When he spoke, his voice sounded like he’d tried to swallow a mouth full of cactus.

  “Gentlemen, we start jury selection tomorrow morning at eight a.m. sharp.” Cough, choke and hack. “As far as I know, we have yet to find a judge to try the case. As I understand it, you have two judges that make a circuit to Baker City, one has been waylaid in Boise with some mysterious malady and the other simply hasn’t responded to our inquiries.” He stopped to clear his throat and sniff.

  The sheriff dropped the cheroot butt and ground it out under the toe of his boot. “Our judge, William Ayers, is stayin’ at my house. As far as my wife and family know, he’s my uncle Bill, my father’s long lost step-brother. I’ll cut the family ties tomorrow morning.”

  Looking up, Bollo grinned at Buck, looking like a kid who’d gotten away with hiding a sack of stolen candy from his mother.

  Buck shook his head at him and tsk, tsked. “Sheriff, you have hidden depths of sneakiness that, before today, I would never have suspected. I admire a man who can hold a secret.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ve suspected for some time you’ve been holding back some secrets of your own, Hoyt. We’ll have to have a little talk one of these days. I’d like to ask you a few questions about your past.”

  After a few moments of tense silence, as Buck and the sheriff glared at one another, Mr. Rhodes cleared his throat a few more times before he found his voice. “Doesn’t that make the judge…I mean surely by now he’s biased. He’s had to hide out, for heaven’s sake.”

  Waving away the little man’s concerns, the sheriff put his melon-sized head to one side and sighted down his big nose at poor Mr. Rhodes. “When I put it to him he had his choice of staying at the hotel and taking the risk of getting a bullet put through his head in his sleep, or bunking at my place, where I could keep him safe and under wraps—the man wisely choose my home. We came up with the idea he should pose as my long lost uncle Bill to keep my wife from getting suspicious. I thought he showed a good deal of sense. I think, given half a chance, Judge Ayers will conduct a fair trial.

  “Even before the judge arrived, I absolutely forbade my wife to speak of Beau Laski…his brother, or anyone else connected with the man, under my roof. She
thinks I’m jealous.

  “The judge hasn’t heard anything out of my mouth about the case one way or the other. I haven’t brought up the case and neither has he. So as far as I know, everything should be copasetic.”

  Buck figured the women were going to come looking for them at any minute. He motioned for the sheriff and Mr. Rhodes to huddle up. “I don’t know about you two, but I think Beau Laski is faking his paralysis. We have to think of a way to disprove he’s paralyzed, expose him for the liar and cheat he really is.”

  The sheriff interrupted the conversation to inject another glimmer of hope. “If the news comes back like I think it will, we’ll have the goods on Doctor Oldmen by noon. I’m hoping, if we can shoot some holes in Laski’s boat, some of the folks who are scared of gettin’ killed will find their backbones and come forward to testify.”

  With his voice low, Buck hurriedly laid out what he’d been planning since last night while lying on the floor in Smiley’s shack. “I’m gonna drift around town and try to pick up what information I can. I want to find out who’s workin’ for Beau and who’s just trying to stay out of the way.

  “Bollo, you didn’t recognize me, and neither did Doreen. I think I can move around and no one will notice. I don’t want Petra or Doreen to know what I’m doing. I’ll try to check in with you, Sheriff—let you know if I find out anything.”

  Turning to Mr. Rhodes, Buck asked, “How long will it take you to select a jury?”

  Mr. Rhodes snorted, coughed, and then composed himself. “I’ve decided to select only those people who’ve lived here more than five years. I hope I can sort out twelve jurors before noon, although I really only need six. I won’t accept newcomers. It’s about all I can do. I don’t have much hope of finding folks who haven’t been threatened or bribed. I’ll do what I can.

  “The real problem lies with Miss Yurvasi. She’s our only witness, and I’m afraid she’ll be called to testify immediately after jury selection. Once she testifies, she’ll be exposed to the very dangers you’ve been trying to protect her from, Mr. Hoyt. I don’t see how we’re to keep her and her child safe.”