“Are you ready?” Jed asked.
Betsy opened her mouth, but she never got the chance to answer before he shoved her forward. “Run!” he thundered.
He dragged her into the open. The men saw them in an instant. They drew their weapons and started closing in. Jed never gave Betsy an opportunity to regret her rash statements. He kept a firm hold on her arm. His fingers hurt, but she couldn’t let him down now. She said she could do this, and she would stand or fall by those words.
Jed took off running toward the wagon. He barely hauled Betsy behind it when bullets pocked the wooden wagon box. Jed shoved Betsy into the shelter behind one wheel and bellowed into her ear. “Get ready to run! Run with everything you’ve got if you want to make it out of here.”
He darted forward and grabbed the nearest horse’s bridle. The gunfire already made them rear and plunge and scream. Jed seized the whip from its socket by the driver’s seat. He lashed the horses with it, and they lunged forward against their harness.
The next instant, they were galloping full tilt out of the yard. “Run!” Jed thundered. “Run!”
The wagon jolted forward and took off at a frightening speed. Betsy’s courage died, but she had no choice. She ran as she never ran before just to keep up with the wagon. The men sprayed the wagon with hundreds of bullets. They blew holes in the wagon box, and bullets glanced off the whirling spokes of the wheels.
Betsy ran next to one wheel. The wagon teetered down the driveway and rolled around toward town. The horses flattened their ears against their heads and streaked across the ground. They would have left Betsy in the dust in seconds if Jed hadn’t dropped back to where she ran.
The instant she started to falter, he grabbed her around the waist and pitched her into the wagon box. She landed flat on her side in the wooden bed with bullets whistling above her face. She flattened herself down, not daring to look where she was going.
A moment later, Jed landed at her side. He flung his meaty arm over her and pinned her down, but she wasn’t going anywhere. They lay still until the runaway wagon carried them far, far away.
Chapter 12
The wagon rumbled far out of town. The bullets long since ceased to fly before Jed dared to sit up. He climbed into the driver’s seat and took the reins, but he had to lean all his great strength on them before the horses slowed down and stopped.
Betsy lay where she was and stared up at the blue sky. She didn’t move until Jed’s face appeared above her head. His eyes peered down into hers. “Are you hurt, darlin’?”
“No, I’m not hurt.” She never felt so calm as at that moment.
He waited for her to say something else. “Can you sit up?”
He helped her sit up. She looked around. She couldn’t see any sign of the town. Rolling fields stretched away in all directions to the towering mountains beyond.
Jed studied her closer. “Are you all right, darlin’? I’m sorry about what happened back there. It’s all my fault.”
“It’s all my fault.” Betsy couldn’t stop her hands shaking. “I should have gotten the hammer and gone straight home. I never should have poked my nose in the Sheriff’s business. I put you in danger. I’m sorry.”
He covered her hands with his. His warmth soothed her anxiety, but she couldn’t stop shaking all over. “You have nothing to be sorry for. They would have found a way to get to you no matter what you did.”
“I’m sorry,” she wailed through chattering teeth. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“It’s all catching up with you. Come on. I’m taking you home. There’s just one problem.”
“What’s that?”
“This wagon belongs to Merrill,” he pointed out. “I can’t exactly drive it into town with you on the seat at my side. We might as well send up a flag telling everyone what we just did.”
Betsy kept looking around her in blank stupidity. She couldn’t get her brain to think a way out of this predicament. Jed didn’t appear forthcoming, either. They sat in silence in the wagon for a few minutes before a horse and rider approached from the west.
Jed and Betsy watched the figure come closer. Who would it be? Would it be another one of Merrill’s hatchet men? When he saw Jed and Betsy sitting on Merrill’s wagon, he would probably attack. Then Jed and Betsy would be in danger all over again.
Betsy couldn’t cope with that. Nearly losing her life several times in one day was enough. She would rather lie down and die than face that again. She resigned herself to her fate. Jed seemed to do the same. He didn’t tense to fight. He just waited.
The horse got closer, and they beheld a sturdy man sitting in the saddle. He wore a hat, chaps, and guns, along with a handkerchief tied around his neck. He drew level with them, and Kelvin Kirk stared back at them.
The three of them blinked at each other in amazement for what seemed like hours. Kelvin broke out of his trance first. “What in tarnation are you two doin’ out here?”
Jed opened his mouth and closed it again. “We…well, we….”
Kelvin closed his eyes and held up his hand. “I don’t want to know. Don’t tell me.”
Jed shook himself awake. “I need a favor, son.”
“Name it,” Kelvin returned. “You know I’ll do anything for you and your lady here.”
“Drive us back to the forge, and don’t ask any questions,” Jed replied. “Drop us off at my place, and then take this wagon to Merrill Fox’s house. You can leave it by the back kitchen door and go on your way. Would you do that for me?”
“You bet,” Kelvin exclaimed. “Is that all? Are you two in some kind of trouble or something? If you are, all you have to do is tell me, and I’ll do what I can to help you. You know that.”
“Thanks,” Jed replied. “I appreciate it. If I need anything else, I’ll let you know.”
Kelvin swung out of his saddle. He tied his horse behind the wagon and climbed into the driver’s seat. “Move over, son, and watch how the professionals do it.”
“I don’t have to watch,” Jed replied. “I know you can do it.”
He got into the wagon box with Betsy, and they both lay down flat on the boards where they couldn’t be seen from outside. Kelvin raised an eyebrow at them, but true to his word, he asked no questions. He clucked to the horses and started them forward.
Betsy huddled into Jed’s arms on the way back. She didn’t want to see where they were going. She never wanted to be anywhere but hidden in his embrace for the rest of her life. She was going home to the forge. Nothing else mattered now.
Kelvin drove them to the forge and parked in front of the corrals. Jed sat up and swept the surroundings with his fierce gaze. “It’s okay. Come on.”
He helped Betsy up and lifted her out of the wagon. When they both stood on terra firma again, Jed stuck his hand up to Kelvin. “I won’t forget this, son. You really came through for me today.”
“I didn’t do anything,” Kelvin countered. “I just drove this here wagon back to where it belongs—at least, that’s what I’ll tell anybody who asks. I’ll say I found it by the side of the road, and I brought it back to Merrill’s house. That’s all true, at least.”
Jed shook his hand. “Thank you. You’re my hero.”
“Shucks, man,” Kelvin exclaimed. “If I can be your hero by driving a wagon around, I don’t reckon much on your opinion.”
He slapped the reins on the horses’ backs and drove away. Jed put his arm around Betsy’s shoulders while they watched him out of sight.
“He’s a good friend,” Betsy remarked.
“He’s a lot more than that,” Jed replied. “He’s a gem. I never knew he had it in him until now. I have to find a way to pay him back for this. I only wish I knew something he needs.”
Betsy rested her head on his shoulder, and that snapped him out of his reverie. He steered her inside and parked her in the kitchen. She was never so glad to sit down in a chair in front of her own cook stove.
Jed poked up the coals and got
the fire blazing. He put the kettle on and poured her a steaming cup of hot tea. She couldn’t even hold it without spilling it, so he set it on the table in front of her.
Now that she was safe, she let herself fall apart in a way she didn’t allow herself in the basement. She was never so scared in her life, and now it was all over. Jed wrapped her shawl around her shoulders, but not even that and the blazing fire could warm the chill in her heart.
Jed worked everywhere at once, and he held the cup so she could take a drink of the scorching liquid. It burned a fiery path to her guts and warmed her from the inside.
He knelt down on the floor in front of her. “Now listen to me. I have to go into town to the Post Office. I want you to stay here until you get warm, and then I want you to go upstairs and go to bed. I’ll be back in a minute. I want to find you sound asleep in bed when I get back. Understand?”
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“I have some business to attend to. Don’t worry. I’ll be back in a minute.”
He stuck on his hat and went out. He shut the door behind him, and silence descended over the house.
Betsy sat in front of the fire in the peaceful quiet. She didn’t hear his hammer outside, but the old place still wrapped her in its comforting presence. She started to calm down, and she drank her tea in grateful gulps.
After a while, she thawed out enough to go upstairs. She slipped between the sheets and fell into the most profound slumber of her life. She must have slept all day, because she woke up at dusk to the sound of a door closing downstairs. She barely had time to sit up when Jed entered the room.
“Where have you been?” she asked.
“I’ve been here all day. I was only gone an hour.”
“I didn’t hear your hammer.”
“That’s because I wasn’t working,” he replied. “I didn’t want to disturb you. You needed to rest, but I can see you’re feeling better now. I have some supper ready for you. I’ll bring it to you up here.”
“You don’t have to do that,” she told him. “I’m well enough to get out of bed.”
“Stay where you are. You’ll have plenty of time to cook and clean for me. Let me nurse you for a little while before you take over the place.”
He went laughing down the stairs and came back with a tray. A slice of bread and butter rested next to the bubbling lamb stew. Betsy sat up in bed and ate it all. “Where did you go this morning?”
“I went to the Post Office and sent a telegram to the Federal Marshall’s Office in Omaha. I filed a report on everything that’s been happening up here.”
Betsy’s head shot up. “You did?”
“I’ve been thinking about it for a while,” he replied. “Then you mentioned it the other day. After everything that happened yesterday and today, I couldn’t let it slide. They killed Martha, and they probably killed my father. Wendell drew on me first in that gun battle. That means he was guilty of attempted murder of me, too, and I killed him in self-defense. Fred will testify to that. Then they kidnapped you and the Sheriff tried to kill both of us. It’s too much. We need outside intervention. We can’t allow this to go on another day.”
“So what did the Marshall say?”
Jed sat down next to her on the bed and took her hand. “The Office is sending a Marshall up here to investigate, but they need you to make a statement. Do you think you can do that?”
“Of course,” she replied. “You know I will. I’ll tell them what I heard the Sheriff and Merrill talking about, too. Someone has to hold these people accountable.”
“I thought you would say that, so I agreed we would meet the Marshall next week.”
He got up and moved around the room. Betsy finished her food in deep thought. “You know what this means, don’t you?”
“What’s that?” he asked.
“It means they’ll be that much more dangerous than they were before. They’ll stop at nothing to silence us and prevent us from telling what we know.”
He gazed out the bedroom window. “I know.”
Betsy regarded his still form from her place in bed. He was always so strong and sturdy. He never fell apart and had to be put to bed to recover. He’d been through ten times more than she had, and he had suffered for years and never broken down in all that time.
She put her tray aside. “Jed.”
“What is it, darlin’?” He didn’t turn around.
“Come here.”
He glanced back at her, and she held out her arms to him. He crossed the room, and she pulled him down on the bed next to her. She wrapped her arms around him, and he buried his face in her neck. He let out a shaky breath.
She was right. He needed as much shelter from this as she did. He needed the comfort of her protecting his heart in the sanctuary of their own bedroom. If he lost that, he was just as ruined as she would be if she lost him.
She held him there for hours, long after dark descended outside. Neither of them moved from the spot. What happened outside this room didn’t exist. Only the two of them mattered.
Chapter 13
Betsy rested her hand inside Jed’s elbow. She wore her nicest dress, and he wore his freshly laundered suit and polished shoes. They stepped around the corner and turned toward the Post Office.
That trip took forever. Betsy never knew a simple walk through town could take so long. Every set of eyes seemed to bore into her soul and read the secrets hidden there. She imagined everyone knew what she was doing.
She squeezed Jed’s arm for comfort, and he pressed her hand tighter into his elbow. He, of all people, knew how important today was to both of them.
They stepped into the street and crossed the dusty expanse to the opposite sidewalk. Jed escorted Betsy to the steps to climb up to the other sidewalk when they met a familiar figure coming out of the Post Office.
Kelvin Kirk tipped his hat to them. “Mornin’, Wilcox. Ma’am.”
“Good morning, Kelvin,” Betsy replied. “What are you doing in town at this hour?”
“Well, Ma’am, you’ll laugh at me….” He blushed and looked away.
“I won’t laugh,” she replied. “I wouldn’t have asked at all if I had known it was such a sensitive matter. Forget I asked.”
“Well, Ma’am, it’s like this. I was just sending in an ad to the Matrimonial Times. I figured if Jed here could get a woman like you, I might just take a crack at it myself. If I get a woman half as fine as you, I’ll be mighty grateful.”
“Why, Kelvin!” Betsy exclaimed. “What a generous compliment! I wish you all the best of luck. You deserve a good woman. I’m sure you’ll make a fine husband.”
He blushed worse than ever. “Anyway, that’s what I’m doing.”
“Good for you,” Jed rejoined. “You won’t be sorry. I thank heaven every day for this little lady here. Putting that ad in the paper was the smartest thing I ever did.”
He beamed at Betsy, and she beamed back at him. Then, right in front of Kelvin, Jed kissed her.
Kelvin threw up his hands. “All right. That’s it. I’m out of here. You two take it back home where it belongs.”
Jed laughed, and Kelvin walked away down the street to where his horse stood tied to the hitching post. Jed ushered Betsy into the Post Office still chuckling.
They got in line, and Betsy murmured in Jed’s ear. “What did you have to go and do that for? You embarrassed the poor boy.”
“Are you kidding?” he countered. “It’ll only give him more encouragement to get himself hitched. He’s been lonely for years. Seeing you finally pushed him over the edge. I was just giving him the last little nudge. Now he won’t quit until he finds himself a wife.”
Betsy would have argued back, but they came to the front of the line. Simon Wilkins, the Postmaster, addressed them across the counter. “What can I do for you folks this morning?”
“We’re here to see Marshall Faulk from the Federal Office in Omaha,” Jed told him. “I believe he’s expecting us.”
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p; Simon frowned. “I’ll check.”
He left them alone, went into a back room, and returned in a minute. “He said for the lady to come on back.”
Jed drew Betsy aside. “Okay. This is it. Now remember what we talked about. Tell him everything, but don’t tell anybody outside that room about the treasure. Got it?”
She nodded. “Got it.”
“Good luck in there,” he told her. “Just remember. If you need to call on me at any time, you just tell the Marshall. He’s legally obligated to come and fetch me at your request.”
“I remember.” Betsy took another deep breath to steady her nerves.
“You better go. I’ll be waiting right out here until you come out.”
She started to turn away when four men waiting in line at the counter spun around. They drew their guns and aimed at Jed and Betsy.
Jed reared back. Then he tackled Betsy to the floor just as the guns went off. They sprayed bullets all over the Post Office and the place erupted in pandemonium. Screams and shouts echoed in all directions, but Betsy didn’t have time to look around. She hit the floor hard. The next thing she knew, Jed shoved her toward the door and thundered in her face. “Move! Get out! Get out!”
She didn’t know what she was doing. She scrambled across the floor littered with bodies. She barely had time to yell over her shoulder, “What’s going on?” Jed wouldn’t let her stop. He pushed her between bodies wriggling all over the floor until she crawled to the Post Office door.
The four attackers stood by the counter and unloaded their guns all over the Post Office. They didn’t care who they hit, but when they saw Jed and Betsy breaking for freedom, they advanced with deadly intent. They closed the gap between themselves and their helpless victims.
Betsy couldn’t hear Jed over the chaos, but she recognized that look on his face. She tore her dress to shreds scooting across the floor. The open door offered the only avenue of escape, but the gunmen oppressed them every step of the way.
The Blacksmith's Bride (Brides 0f Brimstone Book 1) Page 8
