The Bride's Prerogative

by Davis, Susan Page

  Without thinking of her danger, she jumped up and dashed to the front of the steps. She was a deputy sheriff. If he wanted to make sure he’d done the job right this time, he’d have to go through her.

  “Leave him alone!” She threw herself to her knees beside the mayor.

  The other man stopped several yards away. Light from the windows glinted off the barrel of his pistol. For a moment, Gert feared he would shoot at her. Why, oh why had she listened to Ethan and left the rifle home?

  He gaped at her. His dark hat shadowed his face, and she couldn’t see his features, but it looked like he’d tied a dark cloth over his mouth and chin. He raised his other hand over his head and thrust it toward her as though throwing something.

  Everything happened so fast, Gert barely noticed the men pouring out the door of the Spur & Saddle. All she could take in was the mayor lying on the steps gasping, the small click as a tiny object hit the stair tread beside his body, and the shadowy man fleeing down the boardwalk. He ran to the horses tied before the telegraph office. In a flash, he had unhitched Storrey’s paint horse and leaped into the saddle. Gert turned her attention to the mayor. He sucked in a big breath and shut his eyes. The other man disappeared with only staccato hoofbeats testifying to his flight.

  “Trudy! I heard a shot. What happened?” Ethan crouched beside her. “Is that the mayor?”

  She looked up and nodded. Her eyes filled with tears, multiplying the images of a dozen men who stood above her, staring.

  Augie thundered down the steps with a linen towel in his hand and knelt by Walker’s other side. He pulled back the mayor’s jacket.

  “He’s bleeding bad.” Augie stuffed the towel over the wound. “I think he’s breathing.”

  Ethan looked up at the other men and singled out Ezra Dyer. “Go get Bitsy. Ask her where we can put him.”

  “Sure thing, Sheriff.” Ezra turned and clumped through the throng.

  Ethan slid his arm around Gert’s waist. “Are you all right? What happened?”

  “The penny man,” she gasped. He stared at her. “Wh—you sure?”

  She nodded. His strong arm felt so warm and reassuring, she didn’t want to move. But she had to, before they lost track of the evidence. She leaned across the mayor’s body and picked up the small object by Augie’s boot. It had bounced off the step above, spun, and lodged against the stair riser. She held it up to Ethan.

  He turned his palm upward, giving her a place to drop the penny.

  CHAPTER 33

  Cyrus ran up the middle of the street. Long before he reached the Spur & Saddle, he was gasping. When had he gotten so out of shape? He didn’t work as hard as he used to on the ranch or in his mining days. Now he mostly sat around his office all day. Suddenly the run from the Nugget to Bitsy Shepard’s place was too much for him. He slowed down near the telegraph office and pressed one hand to his chest. No sense bringing on heart failure.

  Parnell Oxley dashed past him. The young ranch hand had burst into the Nugget with news that the mayor had been gunned down outside the Spur & Saddle. Ted Hire, the Nugget’s bartender, followed Oxley. Twenty or more men crowded around the front entrance of Bitsy Shepard’s saloon. Cyrus shoved aside two at the fringe.

  “Let me through.” He halted, staring at the tableau on the steps. It was true. Charles Walker lay sprawled as though he’d fallen on the steps in midstride. Augie Moore hovered over him, and on the other side, Gert Dooley sat on the bottom step with the sheriff beside her. Cyrus glared at Ethan. “What happened here?”

  Ethan stood and pushed his hat back. “Mr. Fennel. We’re about to move the mayor inside where we can tend him.”

  Cyrus pushed past another man and went to his knees by his friend’s head. “Charles, can you hear me?” Walker moaned, and relief coursed through him. Cyrus wasn’t prepared to lose the one man he called a true friend.

  The mayor’s eyes flickered open. “Wh … what happened?”

  The sheriff leaned in close and laid a hand on his shoulder. “Someone shot you in the belly, Mr. Walker. We’re going to take you into the Spur & Saddle. Miss Shepard’s getting a room ready. Then we’ll see if Annie Harper will come look at you.” Annie not only served as a midwife, but in the absence of a doctor, she was known as the person best at sewing up knife cuts and setting bones.

  Mayor Walker lifted one hand and grasped the front of Ethan’s vest. “No! Don’t take me in there. Orissa will have cats. Take me to my own house. It’s not far.”

  “He’s right,” Cyrus said. He wasn’t sure Orissa would stoop to entering the saloon on a Saturday night, even to see her gravely injured husband.

  Ethan looked questioningly at Augie.

  “I can lug him that far,” Augie said. “He don’t weigh more’n a magpie.”

  Bitsy appeared in the doorway, and the men parted for her. “We got the room all ready, Sheriff. Did someone go for Annie? And what about Mrs. Walker?”

  Ethan said, “Change of plans, Miss Shepard. The mayor’s talking, and he wants to go home. Sorry we put you out.”

  Bitsy waved her hand. “That makes no nevermind. Did you send one of the fellas to tell his wife?”

  “Yes, ma’am. And then on to the Harpers’.”

  Augie slid his meaty arms beneath the mayor’s slight form. The lamplight gleamed off his bald head. “Hold on, Mr. Mayor. I’m going to pick you up now.”

  “Let me help you,” Cyrus said.

  Augie shook his head. “The best way to help me is to run ahead and make sure his missus knows we’re bringing him over there.”

  As the brawny man rose with the mayor in his arms, a wail reached them from the east side of the street.

  “Not my Charles! Oh why? Why?” Orissa Walker, a black crow crying doom, swooped toward them.

  Cyrus saw his duty and reached her in the middle of the street before any of the others moved.

  “Orissa, calm yourself.” He reached for her arm. “Is he dead? Tell me.”

  “No, my dear. Far from it. Now, be quick and get his bed ready. They’re bringing him home, and Annie will be here soon to help you care for him.”

  “Oh me!” She put both hands to her face and sobbed. “What shall we do? Is it bad?”

  “I don’t know.” Cyrus swallowed hard, but the ache in his chest had worsened. “I think perhaps a prayer would not be amiss.” He took her hand and drew it through the crook of his arm. Augie walked toward them with his burden. Ethan and Gert came behind him. “Miss Dooley,” Cyrus called, “would you kindly inform my daughter of the reason for my delay?”

  Gert stopped walking. “I can do that.”

  Cyrus nodded and turned back to Orissa. “Come,” he said gently. “Let’s get things ready.”

  “You need to tell me everything you saw,” Ethan said to Gert. “I’ll send someone else to tell Isabel.”

  “Send Bitsy so she won’t be frightened.” Gert shivered. She reached to fasten the top button of her jacket. “You need to go after the man who did it.”

  “Did you see where he went?”

  She lifted her hand toward the north end of the street. “He jumped on a horse and galloped off toward Mountain Road.”

  Ethan dashed up the steps to the Spur & Saddle and spoke to Bitsy. She ducked back inside, and he turned at the top of the steps, in the light. “Gentlemen, prepare to ride out with me. We need a posse to go after the man who did this. If you’re sober and you have a horse and a weapon, prepare to leave from the livery stable in ten minutes.”

  As he came down the steps toward her, the men dispersed, and Bitsy and Vashti hurried out of the saloon, spreading shawls about their shoulders. They headed together down the boardwalk toward the Fennel House.

  Ethan reached Gert’s side. “Walk with me as far as your house, Trudy. Tell me on the way what you saw.”

  “He was all dressed in black. I was standing there, behind the steps.” She swiveled and pointed to the spot beyond the hitching rail where a half dozen men were preparing to mount.
“The mayor reached the steps, and this man came out of the alley yonder. I couldn’t see him well—just that someone else was coming. Then he fired a gun, and the mayor fell.” She stopped walking in front of the telegraph office. Her throat burned as she recalled the moment. “He was right about here when he did it. I don’t think he saw me. He started walking toward the mayor, and I jumped up. I was afraid he’d shoot Mr. Walker again.”

  “Oh, Trudy.” Ethan slid his arm around her and pulled her close for a moment. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

  She leaned away from him. “I’m the law, Ethan, same as you. I wasn’t going to let him do worse than he’d done. I suppose if I’d stayed put I might have seen him more clearly, but then the mayor would be dead for sure.”

  “I expect so.”

  “That’s when he threw the penny. I think now he was maybe just coming closer to leave it by Mr. Walker’s body, but at the time …”

  “Hey! Where’s my horse?”

  They both whirled toward the hitching rail. Ralph Storrey stormed down the boardwalk toward them. “Sheriff, someone’s up and stolen my horse.”

  “When I yelled at him, he threw the penny then grabbed the nearest horse and galloped off,” Gert said to Ethan. “It was Mr. Storrey’s paint. He rode that way, at least as far as the smithy. After that, I don’t know.”

  They all turned and stared northward. Several horsemen already trotted toward the livery stable.

  “I’ll ask Griffin if he saw anyone ride by,” Ethan said.

  “I’ll ask Bane to loan me another mount,” Storrey said. “If I lose that horse—” He stomped off down the street.

  Gert took a deep breath, certain her next request was doomed. “Ethan, I want to go with you.”

  “No.” He kept his arm around her, pushing toward home.

  “I’m a deputy. And I saw him do it.”

  “No.”

  Bitsy, Vashti, and Isabel ran up the boardwalk toward them.

  “Sheriff, is the mayor going to live?” Isabel grabbed Ethan’s arm and clung to it.

  He cleared his throat. “Well, Miss Fennel, I don’t know. He’s over at his own house, and your father’s with him. You might want to go see if there’s anything you can do. I’m raising a posse to go after the man who did it.”

  “We’ll see her safely to the Walkers’ house,” Bitsy said. “Is the shooting club riding with the posse?” She looked eagerly to Gert.

  Gert gazed at Ethan. “Please?”

  “I can’t let you ladies come. But you can do a lot of good here. Help Mrs. Harper with the mayor. The men riding with me can leave their women and children there so they won’t be alone while we’re gone. Gather the ladies in, won’t you, Trudy?”

  Gert felt her face flush. The whole town would know before morning that the sheriff had a nickname for her.

  “Yes, we’ll do it.”

  Bitsy, Vashti, and Isabel left them to hurry across the street and south to the Walkers’ house.

  “Now tell me quick,” he said to Gert. “What did he look like besides dark clothes?”

  She squinted her eyes almost shut, picturing the penny man in the shadows. “He wasn’t as tall as you, nor as fat as Oscar Runnels.” She looked up into Ethan’s eyes and nodded. “He was young. At least he moved fast. I’m sorry I can’t tell you who he was.”

  Ethan squeezed her hand as they reached the path to her house. “You’ve done fine.”

  Hiram came from the back of the house.

  “Gert, is that you? What’s going on? I heard a lot of commotion.”

  “The mayor’s been shot.”

  “You want to join the posse?” Ethan asked. “I’ll fill you in when you get to the livery with your horse and gun.”

  Hiram turned on his heel and bolted for his corral behind the house.

  Parnell Oxley ran toward them diagonally across the street.

  “You coming, Sheriff? Griff Bane says someone rode past the livery hell-for-leather on a paint horse.”

  “I’m right behind you.” Ethan touched Gert’s sleeve for a moment. “Don’t stay here alone. Get over to Walkers’. If you go out to bring other women in, go by twos and threes.” He hesitated a moment then pulled her to him.

  His lips met hers, and fire shot through her. This was all wrong. He couldn’t kiss her and then rush off to hunt down the killer. He might not return, and—

  “Be safe, Trudy.” He turned and ran after Parnell for the livery.

  CHAPTER 34

  Libby held her pearl-handled revolver in her hand when she went to open her door. Gert stood on the landing outside.

  “Did you hear? The mayor’s been shot.”

  Libby sighed and lowered the pistol. “I wondered what it was all about.”

  “Come over to the Walkers’ with me,” Gert said. “Ethan’s taken a posse after the shooter, and I don’t want you here alone.”

  “A posse? They know who did it?”

  “I saw him.” Gert’s mouth was set in a grim line.

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know. I was waiting outside Bitsy’s for Ethan. The killer came out of the shadows over by the telegraph office and shot Mr. Walker. Then he stole Ralph Storrey’s horse. Ralph’s madder than a wounded grizzly. I wanted to ride with the posse, but …” Her face contorted in a grimace. “We may be deputies, but we’re still women. Come on. And bring your gun. I don’t have one.”

  “Would you like to carry my Peacemaker? I’ve got the little Smith & Wesson now.”

  “I’d feel easier,” Gert admitted, and Libby ran for the weapon and her cloak.

  A half dozen women had gathered in the Walkers’ kitchen. Apphia Benton met Gert and Libby at the door and told them in hushed tones that Mrs. Walker, Mrs. Harper, and the minister were with the mayor.

  They milled about, talking quietly. Myra Harper and Ellie Nash took over the cookstove and made coffee and gingerbread for any who wanted some. Libby kept several pans of water boiling in case Annie called for it. After half an hour, Annie emerged from the bedchamber, asking for clean rags. Libby and Gert searched about but couldn’t find anything that looked the least bit frayed.

  “Typical of Orissa,” muttered Ellie. “Here, take this.” She handed Annie a clean linen towel.

  “How is he?” Libby asked.

  “Not good. I’m afraid the bullet’s done more damage than I can undo. If we had a surgeon …” Annie shook her head and went back into the bedroom.

  A knock sounded on the door, and Libby hurried to open it. Emmaline Landry with Starr Tinen, her little girl, and her mother-in-law entered.

  “Micah rode off with the sheriff’s posse,” Emmaline said as she removed her bonnet. “He told me to get the Tinen ladies and come here, as Arthur Tinen and his father were with the posse, too.”

  “They’d gone into town right after supper,” Starr explained. She stooped to help four-year-old Hester untie her bonnet strings. “I was looking for Arthur to come home, and here came Emmaline with word to fort up at the mayor’s house.”

  Emmaline shrugged. “I wasn’t entirely sure what was going on. Micah wouldn’t stop and tell me everything. Just that the killer had shot Mayor Walker, and the posse was going to ride him down. Told me to get to town and stay here until they come back.”

  “Did a single horseman ride past your place before that?”

  “Not that I saw,” Emmaline said.

  “Me either.” Starr gave Libby a pouty face as she stood. “We’d have been as safe at the ranch, now that Ma Tinen and I know how to shoot.”

  “Oh well,” said Jessie Tinen, Starr’s mother-in-law. “It’s a chance to see the other ladies.” She took her granddaughter’s hand and walked with Hester toward the kitchen door. “So, tell me, is the mayor killed?”

  “No.” Libby nodded toward the closed door of the bedchamber. “But his condition is grave. Annie Harper and Mr. Benton are seeing to him, but it doesn’t look promising.”

  “Dear, dear.” Jessie shook
her head.

  As they entered the kitchen, the other women greeted Emmaline and the Tinens. Florence drew Starr into a corner for a gossip, and Ellie offered refreshments to the newcomers.

  Gert paced back and forth between the wood box and the pitcher pump that loomed over one end of the cast-iron sink. The Walkers were one of the few families to have a pump in the house, and Libby tried to squelch her envy each time she looked at it.

  She cornered Gert near the wood box. “Should we make a foray to the emporium? If they need more bandages …”

  “I could go with you if you like.” Gert’s eagerness told Libby she chafed at the confines of Orissa’s kitchen, no matter how modern the furnishings.

  “Let me ask Annie if they need anything else.”

  Libby went to the bedroom door and tapped softly. Mr. Benton opened it. Beyond him, Orissa Walker sat stiffly at her husband’s bedside, her white face more pinched than usual. Libby’s heart wrenched for her. Annie’s broad back bent over the swathed figure on the bed. At her feet rested a wash basin full of bloody water and drenched cloths.

  Libby murmured to the pastor, “Miss Dooley and I thought we’d go together to my store and fetch anything that’s needed here. I’ve some soft cotton Annie could use for bandages, and perhaps she could use some peroxide or salve.” She shrugged, trying to think what other medicinal supplies she had in stock. She had yet to replenish some of her inventory since the fire.

  Mr. Benton consulted Mrs. Harper and returned with a short list of items the nurse thought would be useful. When Libby reached the front hall, Gert waited for her. Light spilled from the door of the front room, and the gentle murmur of Apphia’s voice reached them.

  “They’re praying,” Gert whispered. “Mrs. Benton suggested it, and they’ve all gone into the parlor.”

  Libby snatched her cloak and handbag from the coat tree near the door.

  “It frets me that Emmaline didn’t hear anyone ride past her house before the posse came,” Gert said as they went out into the cool evening. “I saw the shooter ride off, and Griff saw him go past the livery. That’s the last anyone knows for sure about where he went.”