The Marshal and Mrs. O'Malley

by Julianne MacLean

  Fletcher didn’t even have a chance to think. He walked into the barn and focused everything on shooting that rope in two. He aimed his rifle through the dim light, closed one eye and fired. The noise frightened the barn animals to shrieking and Jo dropped to the hard ground in a heap of skirts and petticoats.

  Fletcher held his rifle in steady hands and fixed his aim on Zeb’s black heart.

  “Where the hell did you come from?” Zeb asked, his tone dripping with irritation. “I thought you were taking care of the saloon district tonight.”

  “It doesn’t much matter. The only thing that matters is where you’re going. And that’s straight to hell.”

  Zeb raised his hands in the air. “You won’t shoot me. You’ve never shot anyone in your life.”

  “I never felt much like it before now.”

  Zeb glanced down at Jo, who had wrestled her hands free and was tugging at the rope around her neck. “So…you did become infatuated with her.”

  “Shut up, Zeb. I’m taking you in.”

  Zeb spoke in a businesslike tone. “Why don’t we talk about this.”

  “I said shut up and I meant it. Unless you want to leave here with your brains in a bucket.”

  Zeb considered it. “No, I don’t suppose I do.” He took a step forward and held out his wrists. “Go ahead, then. Take me in. You’ll have a hell of a time convicting me, though. I have a lot of powerful friends.”

  Fletcher lowered the rifle to his side and pulled his cuffs out of the back of his belt. “It shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “You sound full of confidence.”

  “I am, Mr. Greer.”

  Zeb froze. “I beg your pardon?”

  “I found your signature as Greer all over the papers under your desk. You’re going to jail for a long time, Zeb.”

  But just as Fletcher flicked the handcuffs open, Zeb pulled a small revolver out of his pocket.

  “Fletcher, look out!” Jo called, the rope still around her neck as she scrambled to her feet.

  Zeb fired. Pain coursed through Fletcher’s side and he stumbled back into a pile of hay.

  “No!” Jo called out.

  Zeb leaped onto Fletcher and went for his throat. Choking, Fletcher tried to push him off.

  “No one’s taking me in,” Zeb said, growling between clenched teeth. He squeezed Fletcher’s neck. “I’ve come too far.”

  Fletcher gasped for air, kicking and pulling against Zeb’s hands. His gut was throbbing with pain; he could feel blood soaking his shirt.

  Without warning, a garden shovel made an arc through the air and smashed against Zeb’s head. He jolted under the blow and dropped like a sack of corn flour onto Fletcher’s chest.

  “Are you all right?” Jo asked, pulling Zeb off him. “You’re shot!”

  “No kidding.” Fletcher tried to sit up and see the wound. His blood was staining the hay under him a deep, cherry-red. “Damn, this is the second time this week I’ve been shot. Maybe somebody’s trying to tell me something.”

  Jo pushed him down onto his back. “Lie still. I’ll get the wagon.”

  Fletcher’s stomach churned. “I don’t feel so good.”

  “Hang on!” she yelled over her shoulder, darting toward the barn door and pulling the double doors open.

  He stared up at the gambrel-roofed trusses high above him and waited for Jo to come back. Damn, but his side hurt. And his heart was racing.

  That fact worried him a bit, because he’d never truly been scared before.

  He shut his eyes tight against the pain. Lord, he didn’t want to die like this. He’d done none of the things he’d wanted to do with his life. He’d been wasting so much time….

  Jo, where are you? I need you to hold my hand….

  He heard her voice in his head. You don’t know who you are, and he was beginning to understand.

  Soon his body began to tingle, and though there was still so much he wanted and needed to think about and say, his awareness of things around him began to grow vague and unclear until he couldn’t stop himself from drifting off to sleep.

  Jo raced toward the wagon, leaped into the seat and slapped the reins hard against the horses’ backs. “Yah! Yah!”

  Startled into action, the team trotted into the barn. Jo jumped down. “Fletcher! Wake up! No, no!” She knelt beside him and tried to shake him, but he was completely out. Panic swept through her. She put her ear to his chest. “Where’s your heartbeat?”

  The soft thumping relieved her fears, but she still had to get him to the doctor. The horses were tired, but there was no time to unhitch and change them.

  She pulled Fletcher up by the arm and felt every muscle in her body strain as she lifted him over her shoulder and tried to stand. “Hold on, Fletcher. Don’t give up now,” she said, wobbling under his impossible weight.

  As gently as she could manage, she lowered him into the back of the wagon. Her heart ached at the sight of his unconscious form and the blood soaking his shirt.

  She hurried to climb into the wagon seat, barely even aware of the noose still around her neck. She was about to flick the reins when she looked down and saw Zeb, sprawled in a heap beside a saddle horse.

  Jo stared down at him. Was he still breathing, she wondered frantically, or had she killed him?

  Without another thought, she jumped down and rolled him over onto his back, praying he was still alive. She placed her fingers under his nose and whispered a quiet thank-you when she felt the heat and moisture of his breath.

  Quickly she dragged him by the arm across the barn floor toward the wagon, pulling with all her might, then let him drop for a moment while she searched around the dimly lit floor for Fletcher’s handcuffs. After finding them a few feet away, she strained to roll Zeb over again onto his stomach, then fastened the cuffs onto his wrists behind his back. “That ought to hold you.”

  Struggling with his heavy, limp body, she groaned and staggered as she lifted him into the wagon to lie beside Fletcher, then she climbed back into the seat. “Let’s go,” she said to the horses.

  They drove out the opposite door, and Jo slapped the reins to urge them into a gallop, praying with all her heart that she would make it to Dodge in time to save both the lives she took with her.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Jo sat by the front window in Dr. Green’s office, tapping her foot on the floor, waiting impatiently while he operated on Fletcher in the back room. She thought of how she’d suffered earlier in the day when Fletcher had told her it was over between them, and how she’d not thought the heart-wrenching pain could be any worse. And yet, here it was, worse. The misery on the train had been compounded by fear when she learned about Leo’s disappearance, and now it had swelled yet again to a kind of torture she’d not thought possible.

  She dropped her forehead into her hands and shuddered with dread and trepidation, knowing she would be sick if the doctor came out and told her Fletcher was dead. Please, let him live. Even if we can’t be together, just let him live.

  Voices rose in the street and Jo sat up. The front door of the doctor’s office swung open.

  “Ma!” Leo called out, rushing to her and wrapping his arms around her waist.

  She stood and cupped his head in her hand, bending forward to kiss his cheeks. “Oh, Leo! I’m so glad to see you!” Tears welled up in her eyes and she sobbed with relief.

  Cecil walked in behind Leo.

  “You found him,” she said, her heart overflowing with gratitude.

  “Sure did. Just a short time after I sent Marshal Collins after you.”

  “Where were you?” she asked Leo, stroking his hair and lifting his chin so she could see his face.

  “I was sitting on the steps at Jensen’s Boardinghouse with John, waiting for Marshal Collins.”

  “Whatever for?”

  “To tell him about the letter I found, and that I gave it to Mr. Stone.”

  “You did a very foolish thing, Leo. You should have come to me first.”
/>
  “I know, Ma. I’m real sorry. I only wanted to make you proud of me, but I won’t ever go against what you say again. Uncle Cecil told me everything.”

  She stroked the hair off his forehead. Ah, to see his face and hold him, her dear, sweet boy. She was so very, very grateful.

  “And from now on, I won’t keep things from you either, Leo. I’ll try to give you more freedom. I’ll agree to that because you’re getting older. But you’re still my son.”

  “Yes, Ma,” he groaned good-naturedly.

  Jo held him close and he allowed it for a moment, then stepped back and straightened his shirt. “So, is it true?” Leo asked pointedly.

  “Is what true?”

  “What John told me about you and the marshal— that you two are in love.”

  Caught off guard, Jo stepped back. “John told you that?”

  “Yes, Ma, while we were talking at the boardinghouse. He went there to have a word with the marshal about it. That’s how we met up with each other.”

  “What exactly did John plan to say to the marshal?” Jo asked uncomfortably.

  Leo looped a thumb through his belt. “He was going to tell Marshal Collins that if he didn’t treat you right, he’d be sorry for it, because you deserve to be happy.”

  “I see,” Jo replied, putting it in her mind to thank John one of these days, then worrying about how she was going to tell Leo that what he’d heard wasn’t true, that it would never be true.

  “Is there going to be a wedding like folks have been saying?”

  Jo shuddered inwardly. “Well, no, Leo. Things are very complicated with the marshal and me.” Not wanting to go into any of that, she stuck with the obvious. “Do you know what happened to him?” Her stomach rolled with nervous dread.

  Leo looked up at her. “Yes, Ma, and I hope he’s all right, ’cause I like him a lot. And I think Pa would’ve liked him, too.”

  An hour later, Jo sat next to the bed waiting, holding Fletcher’s hand. “Please wake up,” she whispered softly in his ear. “Don’t die on me.”

  Touching him, so still and lifeless, made the pain in her heart resonate through her entire body.

  She sat back and watched him. Teardrops fell from her eyes onto his bare forearm. “Please be all right. I don’t know what would have become of me if you hadn’t walked into my life when you did. You saved me, Fletcher.”

  Just then, his finger twitched under hers and her skin prickled everywhere. “Fletcher, it’s me. I’m here,” she said. “Try to open your eyes.” He shook his head slowly back and forth, enough to give her a tiny fragment of hope. “You’re going to be fine. The doctor got the bullet out. It was just lodged in the muscle.”

  He opened his eyes and looked at her for a long time and she wasn’t even sure if he recognized her. Her heart was beating like a drum.

  “You saved me, too,” he said at last, groggily. “And I don’t just mean from Zeb.”

  Jo stared at him in disbelief, her emotions flooding into her senses until she felt as if she might collapse from the weight of them. She leaned down to hug and kiss him. “Oh, Fletcher, thank goodness you’re all right.”

  He pulled her in for a kiss and held her as their lips joined tenderly. “What happened to Zeb?” he asked, rubbing his temple.

  “Deputy Anderson came and arrested him, took him to the county jail after the doctor made sure he was all right. He just has a bump on his head that’ll be sore for a while.”

  Laughing quietly, then wincing from the pain it caused, Fletcher squeezed Jo’s hand. “Now they can call you The Bruiser. It’s time I retired the title anyway.”

  “Retired it,” she repeated, not quite understanding his meaning.

  A knock sounded at the door and Deputy Anderson walked in. “Marshal Collins, glad to see you’re awake.”

  “Thanks,” Fletcher replied. “What’s up?”

  Anderson removed his hat and turned it over in his hands a few times. “That’s what I came here to find out. Mrs. O’Malley sent for me.”

  Fletcher gazed up at Jo, his eyes filling with concern. She squeezed his hand one more time, then stood up from the chair, feeling nervous butterflies invade her belly. “I called Deputy Anderson here so I could confess my crime.”

  Fletcher tried to lean up on his elbows. “Jo, you don’t have to—”

  “Yes, I do. I need to tell him this, or I won’t be able to live with myself. It’s the right thing to do.”

  Fully prepared to be handcuffed and taken to jail, Jo turned to face Deputy Anderson.

  Fletcher tried to protest one more time. “Jo, please, don’t—”

  “I’m Six-Shooter Hank,” she said quickly. “I was the one who broke into Zeb’s store that night. Only I wasn’t there to rob him. I was there to shoot him.”

  Anderson looked at Fletcher, as if he was searching for directions about what to say. Fletcher shook his head back and forth on the pillow. “Jo, you didn’t have to do that.”

  “Yes, I did. I can’t let you keep this a secret. You’ll hate yourself for it and I care about you too much to do that to you.”

  Fletcher blinked a few times, a hint of a smile grazing his colorless lips. “I haven’t told her yet,” he said to Anderson.

  Jo whirled around. “Told me what?”

  His sleepy eyes glimmered in the lantern light. “While you were on the train to Newton, I got a wire from a lawman friend of mine in Chicago. Zeb’s real name is Jack Curtis. Stone and Greer were only two of the names he’s used. We’re looking into the rest.” Fletcher wet his lips and paused for a break. His voice was raspy with fatigue. He had to speak slowly.

  “Zeb’s been wanted in Illinois and in three other states for murder and theft among other things, and with the evidence I found in his house, he’ll be convicted for a lot more than that. There was a one thousand-dollar reward out for his capture.”

  “A reward? Are you telling me that—”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Anderson interrupted. “He was wanted dead or alive, so you won’t be going to jail, even if you had shot him that night. The way things stand now, you’ll be collecting a thousand dollars, seeing as it was you who cuffed him and dragged him all the way to town. And that couldn’t have been easy. He ain’t no lightweight.”

  Jo collapsed into the chair, too shocked to believe it. “I had no idea.”

  Anderson replaced his hat on his head. “Is that all you wanted me for, ma’am? To tell me about what you did that night?”

  “Yes, and to thank you, of course.”

  Anderson smiled and tipped his hat. “My pleasure, ma’am. Take care, now.” He turned and left the room.

  Overwhelmed, Jo held Fletcher’s hand. “What will Elizabeth do?”

  “My sister’s a tough lady. She’ll start over. We both will.”

  Jo struggled with the painful yearning that was squeezing around her heart, a yearning that would stay with her and plague her forever, she was certain. She loved this man so much, she would have given her life for him tonight. How would she survive when he was gone? “Will you take Elizabeth away from here?” she asked.

  Fletcher tried to move but winced with pain. His face had no color; his eyes were underlined with dark circles. Jo felt suddenly guilty for being so selfish right now, for wanting to know what he planned to do with his future, when he planned on leaving Dodge City for good.

  “Can I do anything for you?” she offered, rearranging his pillow under his head.

  He touched her cheek. “You already have. You helped me. I…I feel like I understand things better now.”

  “What things?” she asked.

  He wet his dry lips again. “What you said to me, on the train, that I didn’t know who I was…you were right.”

  She sat patiently, waiting for him take an unsteady, painful breath before continuing.

  “I’m not a lawman, Jo. It’s just something I’ve been doing to make up for what my father did, to prove I’m not the same as him. But I am like him. I’m his s
on and he was a good man. It’s time I remember that. I’m not saying what he did was right, and it couldn’t have been easy for him—he was honest about everything. But he let those men go free because he loved us so much and he was afraid of something bad happening to us. Just like how I felt about you.”

  Jo nodded, still squeezing Fletcher’s hand. “Can you forgive him?”

  “I already have. I did a lot of thinking after you said what you said to me, and now, I just miss him.”

  Her eyes filled with tears. “It couldn’t have been easy for you, carrying that burden.”

  “It wasn’t. But it’s lighter now, thanks to you. You showed me that feelings can be complicated when they’re deep.”

  Hearing those kind words only made her love him more, and that didn’t make this any easier, not when he still planned on leaving Dodge City. She at least had to make things right between them.

  “Since you’re handing out forgiveness today, do you think you could forgive me, too? I know I went against everything you believed in and I even asked you to break the law to let me go free, but I’m sorry for it now. I just want you to know that.”

  He pulled her down to hold her. “God, Jo, how can you ask that? You thought you wanted to kill Zeb, but you didn’t, and I know you never would have been able to. You even dragged him back here to save his life. You were willing to confess everything just now, to go to prison because you felt it was the right thing to do. I don’t know anyone with more integrity than that. There’s nothing to forgive.”

  She dropped her cheek on his chest and closed her eyes with a surge of gratitude so strong it hurt. Everything she had feared so deeply—that she was a killer, that Fletcher would never be able to forgive her—it was all gone now. There was only the warmth of the man beside her and a feeling in her heart that was so sweet, so complete, it was almost unbearable. Perhaps now, she could live with letting him go.

  “Still, I’m sorry that all this had to happen,” she said, wiping a tear from her cheek. “I’m sorry that you were shot, that you had to arrest your brother-in-law, that things didn’t work out for Elizabeth.”