Reagan hid a grin behind a swipe of one hand as Kin stepped out from the jail cell. The kid bounced a look from the minister to the floor and then back again, looking like he felt a little stuck. Reagan knew the lean-to that he and his father had lived in wasn’t fit for anyone, much less a minister. But he was also counting on the fact that Kin wouldn’t feel comfortable turning the minister away. It would be good for the kid to have a male role model to look up to.
Kin shuffled his feet. “My place ain’t much to look at. Not sure it’s fit for a minister.”
Parson Clay’s smile was immediate and as large as a moon sliver. He clapped Kin on his shoulder. “If you could see where I grew up—in a tiny tenement apartment in New York City with eleven brothers and sisters and no running water—you’d know that so long as I have a place to lay my head. I’ll be just fine.”
Kin sighed and his shoulders drooped. He looked like his favorite pony had just died. His gaze lifted to Reagan’s. “Can you tell me where my horse is?”
Reagan tipped a nod toward the street. “At the hitching rail out front.”
Kin hesitated for a moment, scratching the back of his neck. “What do I owe for his care over the last few days?”
That smile was trying to come out again. Reagan rubbed a hand over his mouth. Looked like the kid might have done some growing up this week. That thought sobered Reagan right up. Well he remembered what it had felt like right after his own pa had passed. “Well now, that’s going to be up to old Silas down at the livery. I imagine if you talk to him, he’ll let you work it off.”
Kin swallowed. “Thanks for taking care of her for me.”
Reagan nodded. “Wouldn’t have thought to do anything else.”
“And my…pa?”
With a tip of his head, Reagan said, “The parson there bought a wagon, and your pa is…in the back. You sure you want to bury him out at your place and not in the new church cemetery?”
Kin nodded. “Next to my ma.” With that the boy slipped on his hat. “Pa wouldn’t have appreciated being buried so close to a church, no how. He never could stand the sound of an organ.”
Reagan watched them walk out the door, Kin’s feet scuffing the floor like he was bound for the gallows instead of home. Reagan didn’t let himself chuckle until the door clicked shut. That kid was a handful. He didn’t envy the parson taking on the shaping of that life. But from everything he had seen, Kin sure could use the parson’s influence.
Reagan rose to get himself a cup of coffee.
The door opened even before he filled his cup. Reagan paused pouring and looked up. His brows lifted. “Timothy King! Good to see you.” He wondered what the sheriff from Cedar Falls was doing in his town. “I was just pouring some coffee. Can I offer you a cup?”
King shivered exaggeratedly. “You sure can. It’s colder than an iceberg out there.”
Reagan chuckle. “Yeah, I think we are in for quite a storm in the next day or two.” He handed King a cup and filled it from the pot.
Nudging the chair across from his desk, Reagan said, “Please have a seat,” then moved around to take his own chair.
There was a moment of silence while King savored his first sip, then he looked up and met Reagan’s eyes. “You’ll of course remember the outlaw Patrick Waddell.”
“Generally hard to forget a man you shot to death.”
King nodded. “Yes. As it turns out, Patrick Waddell owned a piece of property. And, from all the research I’ve done, he owned it straight up legally.”
Reagan shifted in his chair and leaned forward. He rested his forearms on his desk. Immediately, his thoughts went to Liora. It would sure be a financial blessing to her if she stood to inherit. “Where is this property?”
King motioned with his hand to the northwest. “It’s only about five miles from here. Smack dab between Camp Sixty-Five and Camp Sixty-Six. Nearly ten acres.”
“Well, isn’t that something.” Reagan leaned back in his chair and propped his boots on the corner of his desk. “You know his daughter lives here in town, right?”
King nodded. “That’s why I’m here.”
Reagan felt a surge of happiness rise up inside him. These were the kind of days in law that kept him going. It wasn’t often that he could do good things for people. But it looked like today he’d be able to do something good twice.
King reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out an envelope, tossing it onto the desk. “If you can get her, all she has to do is sign the papers saying I gave her the deed, and the land is hers. Waddell didn’t have any other family, as far as we can tell.”
Reagan stood and reached for his jacket. “I’ll go get her right now. She just works two doors down at Dixie’s boardinghouse.”
Liora was scrubbing dishes at the boardinghouse sink when Reagan found her. “Liora, could I bother you to come with me for a moment?”
She lifted her hands from the sudsy water, a frown puckering her brow. “Of course.” She said it with ease, but there was an underlying ring of tension in the acquiescence. “I was just finishing up.”
“You aren’t in trouble or anything like that,” Reagan rushed to reassure her.
She rinsed her hands and dried them on a towel and then followed him back to the sheriff’s office. He sank into his seat and relished the look on her face that turned from shock to surprise, and then to awe as Sheriff King shared with her about the land her father had owned.
She signed the paperwork with trembling fingers, and King handed over the deed. “Congratulations.”
Liora scanned the document, disbelief still wreathing her face. “I really and truly own ten acres? And only a few miles from here?”
King grinned. “You really and truly do.”
“I can’t believe it.” Still staring at the deed, she leaned into the planks next to the door as though she needed the strength of the wall to keep herself upright. She laughed. “Only yesterday I was trying to figure out how I was going to pay this month’s rent. Now I have a job and I’ve found out that I own land.”
“I’m happy to be the bearer of such good news, ma’am.” Sheriff King stood to his feet. “Well, I better get on over to my son’s place before the weather outright freezes these old bones.”
Reagan nodded. Sheriff King’s son, Ben, was Wyldhaven’s postmaster. “Thanks for stopping by, King. Enjoy the holiday. If Miss Brindle continues to have her way and the weather holds out, there will be a celebration for the whole town come this Friday. In fact”—he looked at his pocket watch—“I’m supposed to be to a planning a meeting about that in just a few minutes.”
“Oh, that’s right. I am too,” Liora added.
King fingered his hat as he stepped to the door. “Ben was telling me about the festival. I think it’s one of the best ideas I’ve heard in a long time. I wish our town did something similar. I’ll be looking forward to it. Good evening now.” He tipped his hat to Liora and stepped out into the wind that howled over the mountains.
Liora dipped a small curtsy. “Thank you again, Sheriff.” She followed King out the door, still wearing a stunned smile.
Reagan leaned in to the back of his seat and propped his feet on the corner of his desk. He really couldn’t be happier for her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Dixie had left Flynn and Rose by Steven’s side about forty-five minutes ago when she’d come downstairs to finish preparing the breakfast she planned for tomorrow morning. She liked to serve canned preserves with her oatmeal, and she always put the fruit in covered colanders to drain overnight. All day long, Steven’s breathing had been increasingly labored.
Liora had already completed the dishes and left the kitchen by the time she’d arrived, so Dixie had taken the extra time that had afforded her to straighten the pantry, which had been badly in need of some attention. Once again, she was so thankful for Liora’s presence.
Now she stepped into the dining room to join the planning meeting Charlotte had called. Though this was the final
meeting before the Christmas festival that was set for three days from now, Dixie knew they’d had several other meetings that she hadn’t found the energy to attend. She hoped she would be able to offer some help, even though it would be of the last-minute variety. And she was thankful to be able to think of something other than her worries over Steven. But just as she was about to sit at the table where Joe, Charlotte, Reagan, and Jacinda waited for the meeting to begin and for others to arrive, Rose rushed into the room. She was out of breath. It was the first time she’d been downstairs in weeks.
“Dixie,” she panted. “Best you come right now.”
Dixie felt her heart leap into her throat. Everyone around the table knew that Steven had been clinging to life by the thinnest of threads these past couple days. She tossed a glance to Charlotte. “I’m so very sorry. I’ve been no help at all for your festival.”
Charlotte’s eyes softened. “No. No. Please, have no concerns. We’ll be just fine, and we’ll be praying.”
“Thank you.” Dixie squeezed her friend’s shoulder as she passed behind her. She felt every eye in the room drilling into her back as she made her way toward the stairs. As she left the dining room, she almost bumped into Marshal Holloway and Liora, who had just come down the stairs, apparently to attend the planning meeting. “I’m sorry. Excuse me.” She stepped around them, feeling a bit like she was walking through a thick fog.
Marshal Holloway made a reply, but it didn’t register.
Dixie paused at the bottom of the stairs, looking up. Rose had already disappeared back into Steven’s room. She’d been sitting with her son for longer and longer periods of time lately, and Dixie knew this had to be rending Rose’s mother-heart asunder. Dixie willed her heartbeat to steady. She prayed for God to help her to want the best for Steven. Yet guilt overshadowed the prayer. She couldn’t help but feel a measure of relief to think he might be passing.
She took the stairs slowly. The door to room five creaked as though even the hinges knew her heart was weighted with the upheaval of an uncertainty.
Rose started apologizing the moment Dixie stepped through the door. “I’m sorry, Dixie. I didn’t know what else to do. He said he would kill him if I brought anyone but you.” She wrung her hands before her.
Dixie’s focus snapped to the back of the room. Her eyes widened as she took in Steven holding something she couldn’t quite make out to Flynn’s throat. Flynn’s hands were out to his sides, palms facing forward, and his countenance was a bit strained, but otherwise he appeared calm.
Steven, on the other hand, was blinking hard—probably to remove the sting of the sweat glistening on his forehead from his eyes. He swayed slightly. But the moment he noticed Dixie, his lip curled into a sneer. “There you are.”
Dixie held out one hand. “Steven, just let him go. Then you and I can talk.”
“And have him run downstairs to fetch help? I don’t think so.”
Dixie swallowed. She dared not look at Flynn. He would have never found himself in this situation if she hadn’t been a coward and run into hiding. This was her doing. She had to keep Steven calm. “Okay, so what do you want?”
Steven snorted. “What do I want? I want a mother who wouldn’t shoot her own son. A wife who wouldn’t betray me in such a heinous manner as to leave me bleeding to death in my own hall!” The muscles at the corner of his eye twitched, a sure sign that he was losing his temper.
Dixie stepped to one side of the door, leaving a clear path for Flynn’s exit. “So let him go, and then we can talk about it.”
Steven leaned forward, his face turning crimson as he vehemently rasped. “I don’t want to talk about it!”
Flynn flinched, and Dixie saw a trickle of blood seep down his throat. She also caught a glint of metal reflecting the light of the lantern on the table.
But the exertion had cost Steven. He swayed on his feet. And it seemed that fact enraged him even more. “I will slit his throat, I swear I will. Don’t think I didn’t notice the way you two looked at each other that first day!”
Dixie’s heart was pounding like the pistons of a steam engine now. She refrained from even another glance at Flynn, keeping her gaze fixed solely on Steven, instead. “I tell you true when I say that I have been faithful to you, Steven.”
“She has,” Flynn asserted, swallowing gingerly.
Steven swayed again and gave his head a little shake. His eyes blinked slow and heavy now. But his scoffed breath held plenty of derision. “Faithful, you say? Do you call it faithful to leave your husband on the brink of death while you ran all the way across the country to hide?!” Once again, his cheeks flushed scarlet.
Dixie knew that bringing up the fact that he’d been beating her nearly to death only moments before that would simply anger him more, so she held her silence.
Steven’s nostril’s flared. “Got nothing to say to that, do you? I thought not.” His focus flashed to his mother, who still stood wringing her hands at the foot of one of the room’s cots. “Traitors and betrayers, the both of you.”
“Steven, please.” Those were the first words Rose had interjected into the situation.
They didn’t seem to do anything to soften Steven’s heart. “I’ve been lying here on my bed, gathering my strength until I was strong enough to take you both off the high horses you climbed up onto. Seems you both are rather fond of the good doc here.”
Dixie felt the blood drain from her face, but again words failed her. If she said the wrong thing and angered him, he would strike before she could even move. She felt paralyzed.
She was surprised when Flynn spoke almost casually. “You could kill me, Pottinger, to inflict pain on your women, but then what? How are you going to get out of the building?”
Steven blinked and swayed a little further this time before he regained his center of balance. “They are my women, as you say. I’ll simply march them down the stairs and out the front door.”
Flynn blew out a breath of dismissal. “There’s both a US marshal and a sheriff downstairs in Dixie’s dining room. And even if you got past them, it’s the middle of December in the mountains of Washington. Where are you going to go to hide in those conditions?”
“Silence!” Steven tightened his grip and another trickle of blood joined the first on Flynn’s neck.
Dixie felt every manner of terror clawing at her insides.
Steven widened his stance as though he might need the extra balance.
Think! What might distract him? Jesus, please… And suddenly she knew. “Would you like a glass of scotch, Steven?” She drilled her focus into Flynn’s for the first time since she’d come into the room, willing him to read her plan in the message of her eyes.
His brow furrowed slightly.
Good, at least he’d noticed she was trying to communicate something to him. Maybe that would be enough.
Steven licked his lips. “You have scotch?”
Dixie pointed behind Steven. “I do. It’s just in the cabinet against the wall back there.”
Steven started to turn to see the cabinet she meant. But in doing so, he loosened his grip on Flynn for just a fraction of a second. It was all the space Flynn needed. He thrust his head upward and Dixie heard the loud crack of his skull connecting with Steven’s chin even as she saw Steven’s head snap back. Flynn shoved Steven’s arm up and at the same moment he lurched forward and spun around. With that one quick twist he had Steven’s arm angled up behind him. He leaned in to him, propelling him forward into the wall next to his bed.
Steven cursed and thrashed. He knocked the lantern on the table and it crashed to the floor. Flames immediately sprung to life along the floorboards, and licked against Steven’s pant leg.
He screamed, and Flynn leapt back lest he catch flame too. He yanked for the quilt on the bed. “Lay down!” he yelled to Steven. “Get on the floor!”
Dixie shoved Rose toward the door. “Run!”
She should run herself, but she couldn’t just abandon Flynn to deal
with Steven!
Steven still screamed as he spun in a confused circle, his terrified gaze fixed on the flames that now consumed his leg up to his knee.
Flynn shoved the man hard, knocking him off balance. He collapsed to the floor, but still tried to scramble away from the flames. His screams grew louder.
“Hold still!” Flynn yelled. He dove on Steven’s legs with the thick quilt bundled into a ball in his arms.
In a panic, Steven tried to kick Flynn away, but Flynn threw a punch straight into his face, which knocked him back to the floor. Steven twitched once, but seemed to be out for the moment. Flynn rolled the blanket firmly against Steven’s leg.
Dixie stood with one hand pressed to her chest. He wasn’t going to be able to get the flames out!
“Dixie!” Flynn yelled. “The mattress!” He tossed his chin toward the flames that still made their way along the floorboards of the room.
Right! Dixie lurched into action. This was her business, her livelihood. She couldn’t just stand by and watch it burn to the ground!
She grabbed the pitcher of water from the washstand by the door and dashed it onto the mattress of Steven’s bed. The water spilled out and soaked into the material. She wished for more water, but there was none ready to hand. That amount would have to do. Taking one edge of the bedding, she upended the heavy tick onto the floor, wet side down. It flopped onto most of the flames and there was a sharp sizzling sound. Only a small patch of flames was left now, licking weakly at a new board.
Hefting her skirts high, she stomped on those flames with her boots. By the time she’d gotten those out, the room had fallen to silence. She spun in a circle, searching in a panic for more flames. Smoke hazed the room and she coughed, but it looked like she’s gotten the fire out before it had done too much damage.
Her gaze darted back to Steven and Flynn.
Flynn sat on his haunches, wrists resting against his knees. Next to him Steven lay so still that for a moment Dixie thought he was gone, but then he coughed and rolled to one side. A scream of pure agony unlike any Dixie had ever heard before slipped from him.
On Eagles' Wings (Wyldhaven Book 2) Page 21
