by Lydia Olson
“And Mr. McKinnon, when he mentioned the charm, told Deputy Wilkens that he remembered the item from when you dug it up ten years ago, is that correct?” Lawson asked.
“Yes, but he couldn’t have remembered that so easily, because it was caked in dirt when I found it, and neither I nor Ellie – Miss Hastings – recall telling him that I decided to keep it,” Wilson said.
The crowd gasped, which made Lawson smile. Eloise could only imagine how much he was enjoying this presentation after sitting in the shadows for so long. He was about to solve one of the biggest murder investigations the town had ever seen.
“Is that right, Miss Hastings?” Lawson said.
“Yeah, he’s right...” she replied. “I may have mentioned that I gave Wilson a lucky charm, but I never mentioned what it was. There was no reason for him to know about it, unless he had seen it up close before.”
“So, we have evidence of two fires starting, and two situations tying the same person to that fire-starting charm, with no explanation for why he recognized it? And we have accusations thrown at a man who did not have the item in his possession during the time of either fire, or the murder,” said Lawson. “And now, for your story, Miss Hawthorne... tell us how you know Mr. McKinnon.”
“I...” she whispered, then paused. “He’s not getting out of his cell, right?”
“As Deputy Wilkens has assured us, he is secure in his cell, and the evidence I have is enough to convict him of many serious crimes,” Lawson told her. “If he leaves this town alive, he will never be welcomed back into it. I swear on my life to keep you safe.”
“Okay...” she said slowly. “Ryan, uh, Mr. McKinnon used to come into the bakery my daddy owned, when we were little. One day, probably a little more than ten years ago, he came into the bakery when it was just me and him. He seemed upset, so I asked him what was wrong, and he said he made a mistake.
“I asked him what he did, and he said that he kept messing up trying to impress a girl he liked. I told him it was okay to make mistakes, because we were still kids, but he said there was no one like her, and she liked his friend better. He said that he was considering saving her from something, like maybe a fire.
“I told him it was strange, talking about fire so casually, because fire is dangerous and hard to control. Then, he looked at me, and he said I looked a lot like the girl. He asked me if I’d ever been kissed before, because he wanted to practice with me. I said I didn’t want to, but then he showed me a sharp, gold blade.
“He said he didn’t want to hurt me, but that I better not say anything, because he doesn’t want the girl to think he was in love with someone else. I told him I wouldn’t, and he said, ‘Good, because I can start a fire with nothing but this, and I’ll take it to your house if you say a word about me.’ He visited me again after the fire, and even comes back from time to time to check that I haven’t mentioned him.”
The crowd sat in silence. Even Eloise, who thought back on those days, could hardly believe what she was hearing. Ryan had been a young teenager at the time, and Eloise had been eight years old. She wanted to think she would’ve noticed if he was that disturbed or obsessive, but she didn’t think any eight-year-old would look at their friend and think they would do something like that.
“See here, Miss Hawthorne – is this the item Mr. McKinnon pulled from his pocket that day?” Lawson said, revealing Wilson’s lucky charm in his hand.
The girl stared at the blade, eyes wide, as if she feared it might leap at her. From the look in her eyes, Eloise could tell that the blade was something from her nightmares. All these years, it had been made to mean something special to her and Wilson, when it had a much darker past than they knew.
“Yes, that’s certainly the same blade,” she confirmed. “The edge is straighter than I remember it, but you can’t get metal to shape like that so easily. It has to be the same one.”
“Ah, so we have another witness – who hasn’t spoken with either of the other two witnesses before you, and has never seen the item since its discovery in the sheriff’s hand – confirming that this item has been in the possession of Mr. McKinnon, only days before the Hastings’ property fire,” Lawson said.
“And what of the confession and the barn fire last night?” Dillion yelled from the crowd. “Will he be held accountable for that, as well?”
“Ah, yes,” Lawson said. “Aside from the evidence Deputy Wilkens has already received – the buttons from the witnessed clothing being burned on the McKinnon property, blood spatter on the wall far from the body, the injury on Mr. Pace’s head, witnesses placing Mr. McKinnon in suspect places near each of these crimes and Mr. Pace far from them, and so on – we have received at least two confessions from Mr. McKinnon concerning his attack of Miss Hastings, and negligence leading to the barn fire.”
“Then we’ve got him, have we?” Dillion asked. “He’s going to go away, never to be seen again?”
“But what about his land?” someone else in the crowd called out. “I work at the McKinnon ranch, and there’s no way his parents can run the place without him. They can hardly walk these days.”
“I heard he doesn’t even have the deed to his land!” someone else yelled. “Looks like it might be time for the McKinnon’s workers to find work elsewhere.”
Murmurs filled the crowd, and the McKinnon worker got to his feet, shouting at the last man who’d spoken. Lawson threw his hands in the air and urged the group to quiet down, but nobody seemed to hear him.
Wilson, however, sat with a sly smile. Eloise recognized it as the look he gave just before he laid all his cards on the table. There must be more to this, she thought.
“That’s enough, quite enough,” Lawson said, finally convincing the crowd to quiet down. “It’s true the late sheriff manipulated documents in order to maintain control over the wealthier workers in the town, the homesteaders. He created many a false deed and used other men to find the real ones.
“It has come to my attention, through various sources, that three members of the community continue to intimidate people out of their land and hire bandits to terrorize the town when we’ve grown comfortable with peace. But through luck, we have put a stop to their efforts to control the town.”
“What do you mean?” the McKinnon worker said. “The sheriff is dead, and these men are still running the town. I can’t eat if I can’t work, and I can’t work if there’s no land ownership to work on!”
“Yes, it’s as I said – by luck, we’ve found the answer,” Lawson clarified. “Digging through the sheriff’s office yesterday, I stumbled upon a list of names, which the sheriff had managed to steal large percentages of money from by withholding their land deeds. As it happened, Mr. Pace had his items confiscated during his arrest, and among them was a stack of land deeds he won off the sheriff.
“When I compared the lists to each other, every name on the list was someone trying to claim the land in the land deeds, except one. The only name not on the list – the only name not losing money to the sheriff, but holding a fake deed – was Mr. McKinnon. As I learned more, I managed to sneak a conversation with one of these bandits, and learned that it was, in fact, Mr. McKinnon hiring them.
“The bandit informed me that Mr. McKinnon met him in a business agreement, and he hired the bandits for the sheriff in exchange for protection from the thefts. He wanted to appear a victim, without being a victim – at least until six months from now, when the bandit had a scheduled hit on Mr. McKinnon’s elderly father and Dillion Hastings, both of whose land he’d own by that time.
“In talking with my informants, I learned that the sheriff was beginning to mistrust Mr. McKinnon in his last few weeks of life. He anticipated losing much more to the deal when Mr. McKinnon took charge of the Hastings land, and prematurely sent the bandits out of town. Mr. McKinnon was angered by this, now forced to do his own dirty work, and ultimately needing to get rid of the sheriff.”
It frightened Eloise to think of how close she’d been to fal
ling into what was a much deeper, more disturbing life inside Ryan’s world than what she’d ever expected.
Not only had Ryan nearly convinced her father to sign his own death certificate, but even when Ryan was telling the truth to her last night, he was still lying. He didn’t just kill the sheriff to get rid of Wilson, he’d weaved Wilson’s hanging and the sheriff’s death into a much more cold-hearted, self-serving plan.
“Oh, Wilson,” Eloise whispered. “I hate to think what might’ve happened if you never came back.”
“Oh, and you haven’t even heard the best part yet,” Wilson said.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The crowd in the saloon sat with their jaws dropped, staring up at Wilson. Even Eloise, who knew a bit more than much of the crowd about Wilson’s situation, had her eyebrows raised in surprise. It seemed to take everyone a moment to process what he’d just said.
“You heard me,” Wilson said. “I’m claiming ownership of the Hastings and McKinnon ranches – not making any changes to the staff, and everyone else on this list is getting their land back, free of charge.”
“You know something,” an old man in the back of the crowd said. “You had me wondering why you invited me to this shindig when I had nothing to do with this nonsense. I didn’t even know what a Mc-cannon was, ‘til you told me it was stealing from and killing people!”
“Ah, Old Man Wilkens – good to see that you’re still with us!” Wilson said.
“Sheriff’s been telling people I died for six years now,” the old man said, his hands shaking. “But I ain’t got a better way to explain that I just don’t answer the door to him no more... now that he keeps coming to me about a deed. I keep saying, ‘I done enough deeds in my life! Leave me alone!’”
“Well, uh, I’d be happy to give this piece of paper to you, if you’ll just sign it for me?” Wilson told him.
“Oh,” Wilkens said, eyes wide. “That’s very kind of you, yes, very kind.”
Eloise laughed as Wilson helped the senile gentleman to claim ownership of his land, even though Old Man Wilkens clearly hadn’t understood a word of what happened. A line of people formed behind Wilkens, and Wilson helped each one of them reclaim their land. Some of them became emotional, and Eloise heard the word ‘hero’ thrown around several times.
“Uh, excuse me, Mr. Pace?” the worker from the McKinnon property said, approaching Wilson. “I appreciate everything you’ve done, truly, but I have one concern. Ryan McKinnon did an awful thing – no denying it – but why punish his parents for his sins? Don’t they deserve to keep their land, too?”
“Ah, yes, the McKinnons” Wilson said. “As I said before, I have no intention of making changes to how you function on the ranch. Ryan’s parents are more than welcome to stay living where they are, and if they need any assistance where Ryan would’ve previously assisted, I’m more than willing to hire a few extra hands to maintain it. With the increase in profit at the Hastings ranch, I’ve got the income to cover it.”
“Oh, is that right?” he said, smiling wide. “Well, I’d be happy to fill a couple more positions on the ranch. I have a younger brother, see, and he’s recently looking for work. I know how the ranch functions, and our daddy raised us to work hard. Give him a chance, and you’ll see.”
“It would be my pleasure,” Wilson assured him. “We’ll start with that, for now.”
Eloise stood back and watched the man walk away, smiling brighter than she’d ever seen someone smile. Everyone in the room seemed overcome with joy, yet Wilson had no idea how large of an impact he’d made on the town. He didn’t seem to realize he was a hero to everyone there. Eloise smiled. Every second with him made her fall in love with him a little more.
“How does it feel being the town hero?” Eloise asked him, resting her hand on his arm.
“Oh, I wouldn’t know,” he said. “I thought that was you. And Lawson. Lawson’s truly hero material.”
“Hey, now – you’re right about Lawson, but I did next to nothing!” Eloise said. “Besides yelling at people on your behalf and believing you were innocent, I was all but useless, and you saved us all. Between you and Lawson, a lot of lives and a lot of livelihoods were saved today. You see that, don’t ya?”
“I wouldn’t take credit for another person’s life work,” he said. “But thank you for saying that.”
“Well, at least I don’t think you’ll be getting a hard time from anyone in this town anymore,” Eloise said. “Nobody would dare bring up your supposedly colorful past after what you just did.”
“Yes, well, there are a few more things Lawson and I have made plans to do, but there are some business matters to take care of first,” Wilson whispered. “What I worry about for now, is your reputation. Have you experienced any criticism, or do people still think we... you know...?”
“Hmm, I’m not sure,” she said. “Nobody’s said anything directly to me, but what they say when I’m just out of earshot is another matter entirely.”
“Well, what do you say we put a stop to that, then?” Wilson said. “Eloise, we’ve had an abnormal experience with one another over this last week, but it’s made me think a lot about what really matters. I can’t imagine my life without you in it, and I just have to say it out loud. Eloise... I love you.”
“I...” Eloise said, choking on the words. “I think I love you, too...”
“You think you do?” Wilson echoed, chuckling and taking her hands in his.
“No, I-I love you. I do,” she clarified. “I told my daddy earlier that when I’m with you, I feel something I’ve never felt before. He told me it was the same with him and Mama.”
“Can I tell you something?” He kissed her hand.
“Uh, yeah, what is it?” Eloise asked, raising an eyebrow.
“He told me the same thing when I told him how I felt about you,” said Wilson. “And he also told me that I’d better have the wedding soon, because he’s got some plans of his own to carry out.”
Eloise choked back uncomfortable laughter, raised her eyebrows, and scanned the room in search of her father. Dillion stood at the edge of the bar beside Miss Maudie, watching Eloise with Wilson and smiling. Miss Maudie also had a smile on her face, and Eloise noticed they were holding hands and smiling at each other in the same way Eloise remembered each of them smiling at their late spouse.
“He didn’t just... did he?” Eloise said.
“Well, I think his old age might’ve made him a bit more impulsive than I would’ve been, but it does look like he may have...” Wilson said. “In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if he did. And looking at them now, I wouldn’t be surprised if she said yes.”
Dillion said something to Maudie, which she responded to with a flirtatious look and a smack on the shoulder. Eloise rolled her eyes. Knowing her father, he probably made a comment about how long he’d have to wait for grandchildren. Eloise smiled back at Dillion, who came over to join them.
“I suppose you should be the first to hear the good news,” Dillion said, standing beside Eloise. “Forgive me for not addressing it with you before making a decision, but having come to value my life a little differently after the events of this morning, I thought the mood just felt right.”
“Yes, it’s been quite the morning,” Eloise agreed.
“Anyhow, to the point,” Dillion said. “I’ve asked Maudie to marry me, and she has accepted!”
“About time,” Eloise said, plainly.
“What’s this you say?” her father wondered. “You’re not surprised?”
“Daddy, you told me about how long it took you to see Mama’s love for you in the same way she saw it... and I can honestly say, I think it’s been the same with Miss Maudie for a while now,” Eloise pointed out. “I’m happy for the two of you.”
“Is that so...?” Dillion chuckled. “Well, we plan to wed quietly in the next few days, and then travel to St. Louis for a retreat. I trust you can manage work on the ranch while I’m gone, the two of you?”
&nb
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