Cloaked (Once Upon a Western Book 1)

by Rachel Kovaciny

  Her anger had cooled during her long, slow walk. Without it, she felt chilly and wished she could have her cloak about her again. It lay in the grass, an empty heap. No sense in picking it up, for it would only give Linden a way to grab and control her again. She needed to move freely if she was to have any chance against him. The knife was warm against her arm, heated by her own body, and it reassured her. Her anger may have abated, but her resolve had hardened. A settled sense of peace comforted her.

  Linden said, “Mistress Mary, still quite contrary.” He held a pistol pointed at Jubilee. In the moonlight, the left side of his face looked raw. Shiny. He must have rubbed something over his seared skin, a grease of some sort. Mary Rose recalled her mother always recommended butter for a burn.

  “I’m here.” She did not move closer. “Let her go.” She looked at her grandmother, hands tied in front of her now, still gagged.

  Jubilee shook her head violently but didn’t try to speak, as if she knew it was useless.

  “Very well.” Linden put his free hand on Jubilee’s shoulder and shoved her toward the steps. She faltered on the first one, lost her balance, and fell. Jubilee hit the hard-packed dirt and lay still. Mary Rose feared she’d broken a leg again, or hit her head and been knocked unconscious.

  “There,” said Linden. “I’ve let her go. I’ve kept my end of the bargain, so you keep yours.” He swung his pistol around to point at Mary Rose instead.

  “I said I’d come down here. I didn’t say I’d come near you.” Mary Rose pressed her back against the fence. She wanted Linden to come down off that porch, to step out into the moonlight where he would make a good target for Hauer.

  “Don’t make this difficult. Again.” Linden scowled. The left side of his mouth didn’t move properly.

  Mary Rose tried quite hard not to feel guilty about having burned his face, to remind herself that it had been self-defense and her best chance for escaping him and saving her grandmother. “No.” She stayed where she was. “You can shoot me here as well as anywhere else.”

  Linden made an impatient growling noise. “Where’s your brave knight on the white horse?”

  “If you mean Hauer, he’s gone for the sheriff.”

  Linden laughed, high and mocking. “As if I’d believe that. He would never leave either of you.”

  Mary Rose decided if she’d told one lie, she might as well keep on. “He told me to stay at his cabin, and he rode off on the horse he keeps there.” She was quite confident Linden had never been to the cabin. He wouldn’t know whether or not Hauer kept a horse there. The longer she could keep him talking, the closer Hauer could get. And the longer she would stay alive.

  “I would have heard him.”

  “He took the back way.”

  “So why didn’t you stay in the house?”

  “I was worried about my grandmother. I wanted to sneak down and see if she was still alive.” Mary Rose did her best to sound fully as young as sixteen could sound.

  Linden stared at her, studied her much the way Hauer had done back in the woods. “Come here, and I won’t shoot you. Don’t, and I will.” He cocked the pistol. “Move. Now.”

  Mary Rose took a hesitant step forward. Then another. She paused between each step, knowing Linden could see how she was trembling. It was from the cold, she told herself, not from fear. She almost believed herself.

  “Oh, come on!” Linden stepped to the edge of the porch. “Get over here now, or I shoot.”

  Mary Rose made her voice high and trembling. “I’m coming! Don’t shoot!” Deliberately, she tripped and fell to her hands and knees.

  “That’s it.”

  Mary Rose shrank down. She wondered if she would hear the sound of the gun firing, or if the bullet would strike her dead first.

  But instead of a gunshot, she heard Linden’s boots on the grass, hurrying toward her. He grabbed her arm and hauled her to her feet, holding her in front of himself. Then he put the muzzle of his pistol to her temple and shouted, “Hauer! I know you’re out there! I have the girl. I’m going to count to three, and if you don’t show yourself, I will shoot her through the knee. She’ll be crippled for life.” He dropped his voice and murmured in her ear, “No more dancing with handsome lawmen.” Linden ran the end of his pistol down the curve of Mary Rose’s cheek. “You’d better pray that half-breed obliges.” Then he yelled, “One!”

  Nothing happened.

  “Two!”

  A shadow detached from the fence to their left, not far from the corner of the house. Mary Rose wondered how Hauer had gotten so close without their noticing. She had succeeded in distracting Linden, even if she had also distracted herself in the process.

  “Stop!” Hauer called. “Don’t shoot her. I’m here.” He walked quickly toward them, not running, but not wasting any time either.

  “Hold it right there,” Linden yelled back. He shifted to keep Mary Rose between him and Hauer, and moved the pistol to point at her head again. “Stop there or I’ll kill her.”

  Hauer stopped. He had managed to cover almost half the distance between them.

  “Throw down that axe, your gun, and the hatchet in your belt. Slowly. I feel the least bit threatened, and she dies.”

  Hauer drew his pistol like a skittish female picking up a dead mouse, holding it between thumb and forefinger, and threw it away to his right. He tossed his tomahawk away, but ahead and to his left, near the fence. While he tossed it, he took a step forward. Then he did the same with his axe, throwing it ahead and toward the house, stepping forward at the same time. “There. Just like you asked.”

  Mary Rose recalled with a jolt of hope that he still had the damaged tomahawk in the back of his belt, where Linden couldn’t see it.

  Hauer said, “You’re only making this worse for yourself.”

  Linden laughed, low and humorless. “How much worse could it get? My face scarred, my reputation gone? I’m through making money with my smile and my head for numbers. A killing or two won’t bother me any at all, not now.”

  Mary Rose tried not to make a sound, but it was no use. She could sense a scream building inside her, a desperate plea for mercy, for help, for an end to this nightmare. It grew and grew until she let out a soft, wailing shriek, sounding like a tea kettle about to boil.

  Hauer said distinctly, “No.”

  Linden pointed his pistol at Hauer. When he did, Mary Rose threw all her weight toward the house. Linden had such a tight grip on her hair that she pulled him off balance, though she lost quite a few hairs from her head in the process. Linden let go of her and stumbled sideways, trying to stay on his feet.

  Before Linden could harm Mary Rose, Hauer whipped the hidden tomahawk out from behind his back and hurled it straight at Linden.

  The loose head caused the tomahawk to wobble while it soared through the air. Instead of striking Linden in any meaningful way, it glanced off his right arm and dropped to the ground. Linden fired toward Hauer, who fell to the ground with a sharp cry.

  Mary Rose’s scream escaped at last, fierce and warlike, though she did not realize that she was making any sound at all. She slid Hauer’s knife out of her sleeve, lunged at Linden, and sank the knife into his midsection.

  Linden staggered back, waving his pistol wildly, now pointing at Mary Rose, now at the house, now at the sky. His fingers plucked at the knife as though he could not remember how to grasp it.

  Jubilee chose that moment to push herself up from where she had lain so still all that time, proving that she, like her granddaughter, was full of surprises. She flung herself at Linden, knocking him forward and against Mary Rose.

  The three of them crashed to the ground in an untidy heap. Linden landed across Mary Rose’s legs, pinning her down. The pistol had slipped from his hand when they fell, and now it rested in the dirt inches from his outstretched hand. Jubilee had fallen on top of him, but he shoved her off.

  The wind had been knocked out of Mary Rose, and everything seemed to pause while she desperately tried
to breathe. Then things swung back into motion, faster than ever as if to make up for the time she’d spent gasping.

  Linden pushed himself up and scrabbled for his gun. His fingertips brushed its handle. The knife handle had snapped off underneath his weight in the fall. It lay in the dirt below him, and blood soaked his shirt.

  Then he had the gun. “At least I’ll take you with me.”

  Mary Rose tried to knock him off balance, but she had used up all her strength. Her fists batted against him, effective as a kitten playing with a toy.

  But while Jubilee, Linden, and Mary Rose had gotten all tangled up together, Hauer was not lying on the ground nursing his wounded arm. He had rolled over, grabbed the axe with his good hand, and leapt to his feet all in one smooth motion. A few steps, and he reached the others. He swung his axe with practiced ease, even though he had the use of only one hand. The axe arced up above his shoulders, then swung downward again.

  Mary Rose closed her eyes when the axe descended and turned her face away. Linden’s limp body rolled sideways from the blow, sideways and off Mary Rose.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Hauer fetched Mary Rose’s cloak and draped it around her shoulders with his one good arm, then supported Jubilee as she limped into the house. Mary Rose trailed behind. She deliberately avoided looking at Mr. Linden’s body, though she was quite aware of it sprawled on the grass. Her imagination was far too ready to fill in the details of his death as it was.

  Hauer settled them beside the fireplace in the sitting room. He grabbed a clean dishcloth from the kitchen and bandaged his left arm with it. Then he built a roaring fire and found Jubilee a blanket to wrap around her shoulders. He promised to return and went out to send for the sheriff and doctor. Mary Rose wondered if Deputy Small would come with the sheriff, but somehow she couldn’t summon the energy to ask.

  Mary Rose and her grandmother waited, staring at the fire. Neither spoke. Mary Rose reflected that she had come West hoping for an adventure, but that she would content herself with more ordinary life now. Real adventures were much too dangerous to be enjoyable.

  Before long, Hauer returned, along with Mrs. Mills. They stopped in the hallway, discussing whether a cup of soothing tea or some strong coffee was more in order.

  Jubilee reached out one hand to Mary Rose.

  Mary Rose grasped it, marveling at how much colder Jubilee’s fingers were than her own. And yet, Jubilee’s grip was firm and steady, while Mary Rose’s whole body trembled.

  Jubilee said, “And to think, I invited that man here. Mary Rose, I see now how my pride has gone before my fall. I thought I could judge anyone’s character. I thought I didn’t even need to see them face-to-face, that I could understand them through letters alone. Mr. Linden wrote such charming letters. How wrong I was.” She squeezed Mary Rose’s fingers. “And you! Why, when your mother wrote me about you, I was certain we would not get along. You wouldn’t like me, wouldn’t care about an old woman you’d never met before. I was so afraid of you. How wrong I was.”

  Mary Rose put her other hand around Jubilee’s. “I was wrong too,” she confessed. “I never trusted Mr. Linden, but I thought no one would listen to me. I shouldn’t have hidden my unease.”

  “Thank the Lord this is all over and you weren’t hurt.” Jubilee looked toward the door when Hauer entered. “And you! What did you mean, not coming back this evening when you said you would?” Her tone was light, but her voice broke on the last words. She let go of Mary Rose’s hands and drew her blanket closer about her shoulders.

  Hauer pulled a chair up and said earnestly, “You must know that if I’d had any suspicion that snake would strike tonight, I would not have stayed away. I thought he would wait until he’d finished going through your books. He told me this morning he had several more days of work to do yet. I suppose Mary Rose and you getting along so well must have spooked him into acting sooner.”

  Mary Rose asked, “Then you suspected him all along?”

  “I have wondered about his reasons for coming here ever since I saw his behavior in the stagecoach. I knew then I needed to keep a close eye on him. But I had no proof. I didn’t want to frighten you and then find out he was honest and my fears groundless. So I watched and waited. I should have realized, once I got to know you better, that you weren’t easy to frighten. I’m sorry.”

  Mary Rose made a wobbly little sound that wanted to become a laugh. “Seems we’ve all had something to apologize for.” She took a deep breath and tried to stop trembling. Another favorite saying of her mother’s came to mind, a line from their well-loved copy of Shakespeare’s plays. She spoke aloud without quite realizing she did so. “But pardon it, as you are a gentleman.” Hamlet, not Mary Rose’s favorite, but one the family quoted often. A wave of homesickness for her family washed over her and set her shaking all over again.

  The doctor arrived first. Once he saw Mary Rose and Jubilee were not badly hurt, he took Hauer to the kitchen to clean and dress his wound. When they returned, he ordered Mary Rose to go to bed as soon as the sheriff had talked to her and to stay there all the next day. On no account was she to ride to town for church. He prescribed the same for Jubilee, and also a warm compress for the joints she had jolted when falling, and a cold slab of beef for the swelling on her face. He rubbed ointment on her wrists where they had been tied together and pronounced her too stubborn to be seriously hurt by anything less than a tree falling on her.

  The sheriff arrived while the doctor was packing up his worn black satchel. The doctor shook a finger at him and told him not to keep either lady up for more than half an hour. Mary Rose found herself relieved that Deputy Small had not come along—she was too worn out from all the night’s excitement to enjoy his company the way she would want to. Which was quite sensible of her, if less romantic than she would have liked.

  Then Mary Rose, Jubilee, and Hauer all explained what had happened, particularly how and why Linden now lay dead behind the house. The sheriff was quiet and kind, and finished questioning them with three minutes to spare.

  Mary Rose crawled back into the bed she had vacated so many hours earlier. This time, she had no trouble whatsoever falling asleep.

  Doctor’s orders or no doctor’s orders, neither Mary Rose nor Jubilee stayed in bed all day on Sunday. They did not attend church, it is true, but both of them were out of bed and dressed in time to eat a late and languid breakfast with Hauer, who had his left arm in a sling made of a dark blue kerchief. They were all enjoying a second bowl of porridge when hoof beats pounded up the drive. Hauer hurried to a window to see who was arriving in such a rush.

  “Who is it?” Jubilee asked. She put a hand to her face, which was bruised and swollen. “If it’s anyone but the doctor, I don’t want to see them.”

  “It’s just Christopher.”

  Mary Rose dropped her spoon. It clattered on the table, slid off onto the floor, and rattled there too. She was grateful she could hide her blushing face by bending down to retrieve the spoon, for maybe when she sat upright again the others would attribute her flushed cheeks to her head being upside-down for several seconds.

  Jubilee said, “That’s all right then. I don’t mind if he sees me—he’s practically family, anyway.”

  Mary Rose dropped her spoon again, though it remained on the table this time. Surely a few dances and a walk in the moonlight shouldn’t make people assume she was ready to marry Deputy Small? Why, she was only sixteen! Though she could not think of anyone else she would rather marry, wasn’t this awfully sudden? “I beg your pardon?” She didn’t even notice that her voice squeaked.

  “Why, I’ve known him all his life—he’s my godson. All the Small boys are. I told you that, didn’t I?” Jubilee tilted her head to one side and regarded Mary Rose with raised eyebrows.

  Mary Rose could not speak. She’d found that reference to dancing in Pride and Prejudice before breakfast that morning, the line Deputy Small had quoted to her. It was right there at the beginning of the third chapt
er: “To be fond of dancing was a certain step toward falling in love.” If he had meant that about her... perhaps about himself... if he was not teasing her... had he already spoken to her grandmother about this? Oh, surely not!

  Hauer cleared his throat.

  Jubilee laughed. “Forgive me, my dear! I didn’t realize you might have thought I meant… I’m sorry.”

  “That’s quite all right,” Mary Rose mumbled, her face pinker than ever.

  Their visitor rapped on the front door. Hauer grabbed the paper off the table with his good arm and retreated to a chair in a far corner of the dining room.

  In a matter of moments, Mrs. Mills had answered the door and ushered Deputy Christopher Small into the room. He stooped a little to get through the doorway and paused inside, hat in his hands. “You really are all right?” he asked, looking from Mary Rose to Jubilee and back.

  “We are,” Jubilee answered.

  Mary Rose looked over her shoulder at Hauer, who was feigning great interest in his newspaper. “Thanks to Hauer.”

  “We owe you a great debt, sir,” said Deputy Small.

  Hauer nodded at him over the paper, which he was having a bit of trouble holding open with his one good hand.

  Jubilee said, “Won’t you join us? Mrs. Mills has just brought in a fresh pot of coffee.”

  “I’d like that, if you’re certain I won’t be intruding.”

  “Nonsense. Friends are never intrusions in my house. Get yourself a cup from the sideboard.”

  Deputy Small ignored the coffee and sat down facing Mary Rose. “The sheriff told me first thing when I came in this morning.” He reached for one of her hands, and she let him take it in both of his. “Mary Rose, when I think of what that man tried to do to you and Jubilee...” His voice cracked, rather like hers sometimes squeaked at the worst possible moment. “You’re sure you’re all right? You’re not saying that to be polite?”