All manner of excitement followed as Jackson headed out after the sheriff who was met by the two local lawmen exiting the newspaper office. In no time at all, they captured the woman and finally removed the bag locked in her clawed hands.
“No! That’s mine!” she wailed after relinquishing her death grip on the bag.
Jackson silently cursed, hearing the swish of Lily’s and Amanda’s skirts as they hurriedly walked up behind him. A large charcoal-colored cape covered the blackmailing woman’s clothing and she could be concealing a pistol somewhere on her person. The hood covered her head and prevented him from distinguishing any features. Muttering incoherently, she twisted and fought with the pair of Butte lawmen holding her arms. During the ensuing tussle, the hood fell back revealing stringy blonde hair and a pair of haunted blue eyes, identical in color to his own. For a brief moment, Jackson thought he was seeing his mother’s ghost.
Amanda gasped from somewhere behind him. “Aunt Ruby?”
Just then, AJ arrived from down the street with another man in tow. Jackson recognized him as the fellow he’d gotten into the scuffle with at the Copper Nugget Saloon in Milestone several weeks ago.
AJ stared in disbelief at his blackmailer. “Ruby Simpson, what in tarnation are you doing here?”
“You know her?” the man from the Copper Nugget added.
The woman glared at AJ, contempt evident in her eyes. “You tricked me. You ruined everything. Why didn’t you just let me have the money?” she howled, sounding like a wounded animal.
Jackson gaped, unable to comprehend what he was hearing.
“Why didn’t you just ask for it?” AJ countered.
Jackson hadn’t seen his aunt since the day of his mother’s funeral two years ago. To his knowledge, no one in the family had heard a word from his mother’s younger sister since. “Why are you dressed in black? Where’s Uncle Austin?” Jackson met her eyes filled with tears.
“He passed two months ago,” she whispered. “All he left behind was his mangy dog and a ton of debts.”
“What?” AJ blurted. “You’re a widow?”
“His old dog passed a week later. Must have been heartbroken, losing his master. Then I learned that Austin had borrowed so much money against the house that the bank took my home.” She shook herself loose of the lawmen’s grasp, her voice filled with rage. “What little money I’d squirreled away will be gone in another day or so. I’m destitute!”
“And pride prevented you from asking for my help,” AJ guessed.
“Edna confided in me. Shared the secret you confessed to her a few hours before the wedding.” Ruby straightened her back. “I knew she loved you dearly. The killing sounded no more than an accident so I encouraged her to marry you anyway, not believing you were guilty of any wrongdoing.”
AJ stood hands on hips. “But you figured you could use that information against me decades later.”
Ruby’s lower lip trembled and she appeared close to another flood of tears. “What else could I do? I hadn’t any idea Austin was gambling away every cent we had, and then some. Borrowing money against our home. Racking up more and more debt. We hadn’t any children for me to turn to for help.”
“You had nephews,” Jackson reminded her.
“And a niece who would have helped you in a heartbeat,” Amanda added, wrapping her arms around her aunt. “You should have come to Milestone.”
Ruby shook her head. “I just couldn’t. I was so ashamed of my stupidity. Embarrassed I hadn’t realized what Austin was doing.”
“You aren’t the first woman left penniless by a gambling spouse,” Sheriff Robertson said. “Won’t be the last either, unfortunately.”
“What do you want to do about this, Robertson?” one of the local lawmen inquired.
“Nothing,” AJ interjected. “I haven’t lost any money, Carl. No one was hurt. We’ll take Ruby home with us and care for her. This is the end of it.”
Sheriff Robertson met eyes with the Butte lawman and nodded. “He’s right. Thank you for your help. If I can ever return the favor…”
“You’re welcome, Carl. Drop by and say hello whenever you’re out our way.” The local lawman in charge shook hands with him. “You, too, AJ. Pleasure to lend a little help.”
“I appreciate it, gentlemen.” AJ shook hands with all the local lawmen. “McLennons take care of their own. We’ll see that Ruby’s financial needs are met. And if there are still any of my brother-in-law’s debts outstanding here in Butte, those will be cleared up also before we head home.”
Ruby teetered on her feet, and then promptly fainted in a heap on the boardwalk.
“Oh, my goodness! She must be exhausted!” Lily exclaimed. “Jackson, please carry her to our hotel room.”
Jackson scooped his aunt up in his arms. He wasn’t surprised that Lily had been first to offer his aunt a bit of tender care. It was just who she was.
Chapter 22
Next afternoon, Jackson accompanied Lily and Amanda to the sheriff’s office in Butte while his aunt rested in her hotel room. He’d gotten word Pa and Carl had learned information they were willing to share with them. He prayed for good news. After what they’d recently endured, he figured the family was about due.
The moment they entered the meeting room Jackson spotted the stranger he’d had the fight with in the Copper Nugget. What was he doing here? The fellow stood talking cordially with his pa though. Jackson crossed the floor and stuck out his hand. “Jackson McLennon.”
The man shook his hand. “Ben Walker. I’m an old friend of your father’s.”
Jackson met the man’s eyes. “Ben. From the letter to Pa dated 1848?”
“That would be me.” Ben nodded. “I worked with your father back then. Never believed he was guilty of anything but involvement in an unfortunate accident.”
“Jackson, when I spotted Ben in the saloon, I thought he’d come to dredge up the past. I high-tailed it out of there as soon as Carl sent us home.” AJ placed a hand on Ben’s shoulder. “Then when the blackmailer’s letter arrived in the mail, I assumed Ben was behind it. Imagine my shock when I charged into the Pick Axe Saloon, waiting for the blackmailer to grab that bag, and there sat Ben leisurely drinking a beer!” AJ shook his head. “I wrongly accused him. Ben hadn’t any notion of what I was talking about. We waited together, staring out the window, until we saw the lawmen with the blackmailer.”
“Wrestling the bag away from Aunt Ruby.”
“Never in a million years would I have guessed…” AJ left the thought hanging.
“Let’s begin, folks.” Carl stood at the head of the table, surrounded by paperwork.
“I’ll meet with you again later…”
“No, you should stay, Ben,” AJ offered. “You need to hear this also.”
Everyone took a seat on one of the ladderback chairs, and Jackson caught himself holding his breath, uncertain he wanted to hear this. He glanced at Lily, twisting an embroidered lace handkerchief in her hands. He mustered up every bit of self-control possible to stop himself from wrapping an arm around her shoulders. He moved his chair closer and reached for her hand instead. She tightly clasped his hand under the table.
“Thank you,” she whispered, glancing at him for a moment.
Sheriff Robertson cleared his throat. “The telegraph I’ve been hoping to receive from Texas arrived today,” he announced without preamble the moment everyone was seated at the table.
“What did you learn?” Amanda slid forward, setting her arms on the table.
“Let me do the telling, Carl,” AJ requested.
Sheriff Robertson nodded. “Fine with me. It’s your story.”
AJ took a deep breath and met eyes with each of them in turn. “It pains me that this story came to light after all these years. I’d hoped to spare you the burden of knowing, but it can’t be helped now that Ruby set this in motion.”
“Come on, Pa. How bad can it be?” The lightness in Jackson’s voice disguised his dread. He tightened h
is grip on Lily’s hand, for his own comfort.
“You might be surprised, son,” AJ countered.
Everyone sat motionless. Perhaps, like Jackson, all of them were holding their breaths. Jackson figured on turning a lovely shade of blue before he dared breathe again. What on earth was his father about to tell them?
“This whole business started years ago when I worked as a hired gun,” AJ began, pausing for a moment to let that bit of information sink in.
Hired gun? Jackson blew out his breath and then inhaled deeply. All right, he hadn’t expected that. He glanced at Ben. “Both of you?”
Ben nodded.
“I worked within the law, mind you, from age nineteen until twenty-five. Hunting down wanted criminals. Bringing them to justice, alive or… dead. Mostly alive to stand before a judge. But sometimes a wanted man will prefer facing death ahead of interminable years locked away in a prison.” AJ shrugged. “As a hired gun, I saw the inside of some of those prisons, and I can’t say I blamed them.”
“I agree,” Ben interjected. “Hell holes.”
Jackson noticed Lily’s vise-like grip on his hand increased. Was she thanking her lucky stars she hadn’t married a former hired gun? Or, like Jackson, was she concerned where this story was headed? He braced himself for the next revelation.
“One night shortly after I’d turned twenty-five, my career as a hired gun went south.” AJ met Jackson’s eyes, then settled on his daughter. “I hate for you to hear this, little girl. Are you certain you don’t want to leave?”
Amanda shook her head.
“Tell us, please,” Lily whispered.
Jackson nodded, gently squeezing Lily’s hand. “I agree. We need to hear it, Pa. All of it. Together.”
“All right.” AJ took another deep breath. “I was working in a small town in Texas. I’d finally gotten wind of the location of the ornery bast… crook I’d been searching for. Spent six months trailing him, missing him by days or sometimes hours. I’d searched every saloon in that town. Nothing. Then I walked outside through a set of batwing doors and spotted him up the street a short ways, walking out of a brothel.”
AJ closed his eyes and glanced up at the ceiling for a moment. Without looking at anyone in particular, he continued his story, “I recognized the miserable varmint’s familiar swagger when he turned and walked in the opposite direction.”
Jackson’s stomach roiled. In the opposite direction? Was that what had happened? He swallowed hard, bile rising into his throat. Had his pa shot the man in the back?
AJ shifted in his seat. “I tore down the street after him, calling his name while I drew my pistol. Told him I knew he was wanted for robbing trains and killing a lot of folks while doing it. He was the last living member of his band of robbers. I warned the fellow I was bringing him to justice, ending the thefts and the carnage. He swung around and faced me, cussing a blue streak.”
AJ paused to grab the cup on the table in front of him. He took a sip of water.
Jackson blew out his breath, relief washing over him when he realized no one had been shot in the back.
“The varmint just laughed. Shouted no wet-behind-the-ears kid was man enough to capture him.” AJ shook his head. “He drew his pistol and aimed it at me. I fired. Twice. I never missed my target, and I knew I would hit him at least once. But I couldn’t believe the scene before me.”
AJ closed his eyes, the pain of the memory evident on his face.
“Go ahead, Pa. I’d wager you need to tell this as much as we need to hear it,” Jackson encouraged.
AJ nodded. “The man had fallen spread-eagled in the dirty street, moaning and cursing. One of the bullets hit him and I figured it might take a few moments for him to bleed out.” He inhaled and blew out his breath. “But there was another body on the ground, much closer to me.” He took a deep breath and blinked the unshed tears from his eyes. “I’ll never forget seeing that small child. A boy about six judging by the size of the blue overalls and unruly mop of short brown hair. He just lay there so still. Lifeless. Dead,” he whispered.
Amanda gasped.
Lily’s hand covered her mouth and her eyes filled with tears.
“I should have stayed. Should have faced the consequences. But I panicked. I closed my eyes for a moment and saw myself swinging from a tree, a noose around my neck. Killing a child! I swore to myself I’d never fire a gun again.” AJ’s voice thickened, he waved his hand indicating he couldn’t go on.
“But the shooting was deemed an accident,” Sheriff Robertson interjected, continuing where AJ left off. “We received a telegraph from a former colleague who learned that there was never any charges against AJ, against Alex Jackson. The shooting was witnessed by a soiled dove… a young woman who worked at the brothel and happened to be staring out the window when the accident occurred. She told the sheriff exactly how it happened. The child darted out from the alleyway between the hardware store and the brothel.”
The sheriff read from the telegraph. “This is what she reported. The man who shot the little boy couldn’t have seen him or realized he was going to run into the line of fire. The man couldn’t have stopped the accident from occurring.” He glanced at AJ. “The local lawman believed her and the matter went no further. Alex Jackson, the name AJ used back then in that line of work, has never been anything but a free man.”
Jackson slid forward in his seat. “What?”
“I knew he should be proved innocent!” Ben blurted.
The sheriff nodded “Your father hid his identity all these years for no reason.”
“Alexander Jackson McLennon was never guilty of a damn thing,” AJ blurted, annoyance in his voice. “If I’d only waited for the sheriff to show up that night, instead of running like the scared kid that I was. If I’d waited and listened to the soiled dove’s explanation of the events, life would have been so different. My dear Edna wouldn’t have gone to her grave believing she’d married a child murderer. And I certainly wouldn’t have had my desperate sister-in-law almost ruining her life by attempting to blackmail me.”
“But you had no idea anyone had witnessed the shooting,” Lily offered. “I can’t imagine how bad you must have felt.”
“Devastated, and for a brief moment, I considered turning the gun on…” AJ confessed in a whisper. “Well, obviously I immediately came to my senses and didn’t.”
“Papa, I’m so sorry that happened to you. But how did you end up in Montana?” Amanda whispered, finally finding her voice.
“It was 1848 when it happened and I lit out of Texas, figuring the farthest place that I could think of, short of taking a boat to Europe, was Montana Territory.” AJ shifted in his chair. “Ended up on the Double M Ranch looking for work, and Michael Miller hired me. He wasn’t a man to ask questions, and I certainly wasn’t about to offer any explanation for being so far from my home.”
“He never asked anything?”
AJ nodded. “Not once. I figured maybe he’d done something in his past that he wasn’t too proud of and decided to give me the benefit of the doubt. Or he simply trusted folks. I’ll never know.”
“And when he passed away, he left you the ranch,” Amanda summarized.
“Told me one night when he was drunk as a skunk that he’d only ever loved one woman, but due to circumstances, they’d never married. No idea who she was, or what those circumstances were.”
“That’s so sad,” Amanda whispered.
AJ continued, “Michael said on a number of occasions that he considered me the son he never had. During the winter of 1855 he passed away. I was surprised when the lawyer read his will and I learned that Michael left the ranch and all his assets to me. But I’d turned thirty-two that year and by then I’d grown a few brains in my head. Michael knew he’d placed his legacy in good hands.”
AJ glanced at Jackson and then Amanda. “I married your mother, a twenty-year-old schoolteacher named Edna Jane Robinson. She was the woman for me, despite the age difference. When my first son was
born, I knew I’d do the same as Michael Miller had. Pass on my legacy. I pray Jackson, or at least one of my boys, has a son one day to carry on what my benefactor put in motion all those years ago.”
“My heart hurts for you, AJ. I cannot imagine the anguish you’ve felt all these years.” Lily reached out and touched his hand.
AJ nodded.
Jackson saw the emotion on his father’s face, speaking of the man he loved like a father. “Pa, at least one of the bullets killed the robber also. You completed the assignment. Likely saved a lot of lives by putting that man in the ground.”
“All true. Too bad AJ didn’t learn there were never any charges against him.” Sheriff Robertson shrugged. “Rather ironic he’s been erroneously hiding from the law all these years, after he spent six years as a hired gun, hunting down so many despicable criminals hiding from justice and wanted by the law themselves.”
Lily smiled at AJ. “At least, you always used your gun-handling abilities for good.”
“There is that all right,” AJ agreed. “Back in my day and even now, there are a lot of hired guns or shootists or whatever you want to call them making money on their abilities with a gun. Many by unlawful means. Hired over cattle wars. Hired to do other feller’s dirty work for any number of reasons. I worked for the law, always. Bringing known criminals to justice, doing what I figured was right and what needed done. That first job led to another and then another. Putting my talent with a gun to good use. I didn’t enjoy the job, but I done it knowing I’d be saving a lot of lives.”
Jackson squeezed Lily’s hand under the table and she met his eyes, smiling briefly. He hoped to marry Lily one day, and hopefully, they’d have a son to carry out his pa’s wishes and those of the generous man who first put the Double M legacy in motion.
Provided Jackson could run the ranch as his pa intended. With all the grief his brothers were giving him, he might be in jail for assaulting one of them. Most likely Daniel who wouldn’t listen to a single instruction.
“I’d love to see this ranch of yours, AJ,” Ben remarked, shaking his friend’s hand.
Canceled-Order Bride (Sons Of A Gun Book 1) Page 16
