Tatiana March - The Marshal's Wyoming Bride

Stop smiling , Dale berated in his mind. Don’t look so damn pleased .

But, just like she lacked a poker face, Miss Rowena lacked the skill to hide her emotions, and now her entire demeanor reflected the easing of fear, the joy of finally being able to tell the truth.

The judge scowled at her. “You helped your accomplices to commit fraud?”

“No.” Furiously, she shook her head. “No! I don’t work with them. I’ve never participated in a swindle in my life, never cheated anyone. It is simply that I owed these men a debt of gratitude, for they once saved my life. I had to help them escape.”

“Fifty dollars I lost,” someone shouted.

“They took twenty-five from me!”

The judge banged his gavel. “Silence! Silence in my courtroom.”

The angry voices faded to a mutter.

“I tried to stop the swindle.” Alarmed now, Rowena faced the crowd, flinching at the angry stares directed at her. “I’d been laid down with a fever, and by the time I recovered and learned Revery and Smith were in town, the fraud had already been perpetrated. I went to see Revery, begged him to give back the money, but he said it would be too dangerous, that he would be prosecuted anyway. I tried to warn people, told them not to invest, but nobody would listen to me…”

The judge made a stabbing motion with his gavel, pointing at her. “You could have gone to the sheriff.”

“I thought of it…of course I did… For days, I was fraught with indecision, torn between conflicting loyalties… But the sums they took were not significant…” Rowena nodded at the crowd, picking out some of the victims. “Mr. Timmerman, I know you spent much more than that on the new furniture for your living room…and Mr. Hoskins, I’ve heard you boasting that you gamble far greater amounts in the saloon every Saturday…and Mr. Silver, everyone knows that your new breeding bull cost at least three times as much.” Rowena spread her hands, looking contrite. “I feel bad for your losses, of course I do, but I know they will not have a lasting impact on your welfare. But these two men…” She shook her head and spoke with a plea in her tone. “I couldn’t have them arrested… I owe them my life…”

Gavel pointing, the judge addressed his words to Dale. “Marshal Hunter, you’ve entered yourself on record as a witness. Am I to believe this fancy tale?”

Dale got to his feet. “It’s not a fancy tale, Your Honor. My findings support what Miss McKenzie has testified. I believe these two conmen have been operating the same swindle throughout the western territories. They have escaped the attention of the law because they are careful to keep the amounts small, and I believe the mining claims they sell are genuine. They just happen to be worthless.”

The judge turned to Sheriff Macklin. “How much did the victims in this town lose? Has someone tallied it up?”

The sheriff handed over a sheet of paper. Head bent, eyes on the document, the judge announced his verdict. “The territory versus Miss Rowena McKenzie. The accused has been found guilty of participating in a fraud and has to make restitution to the amount of…” A pudgy finger traced down the column. “The amount of three thousand two hundred dollars, which allows everyone to be reimbursed and adds something for the court expenses. If the accused fails to make restitution within thirty days, she is sentenced to three years in the territorial penitentiary.”

The crowd gasped.

The gavel banged.

The judge called, “Next case.”

* * *

The sounds of the courtroom faded away in Rowena’s ears, as if she’d been trapped inside a bubble, isolated from her surroundings. She felt someone tugging at her arm. She turned to look and saw Sheriff Macklin frowning down at her.

“Miss Rowena, I’ve got to escort you back to the jail.”

Her eyes darted about, searching for Marshal Hunter. He was over by the judge’s desk, huddled in conversation. Of course, she was no longer his responsibility.

On legs that nearly buckled beneath her, Rowena rose from the witness chair and followed Sheriff Macklin out, past the rows of seats. People were staring. She clung to the deportment drilled into her by her expensive education and held her head high, but she knew the terrified look in her eyes betrayed her panic.

By the exit, she paused and turned around to face the crowd. “I’m sorry for what I have done. But I felt I had no choice. It is my firm belief that these men wouldn’t have survived a prison sentence. Not even for a year or two.”

Not pausing to evaluate if her apology had any impact on the hostile crowd, Rowena allowed the sheriff to escort her away. At the jail, the iron grille that had previously given her a sense of safety and privacy took on a sinister quality. She listened to it clunk shut and curled her hands around the solid iron bars.

“Sheriff Macklin, please… Yuma prison…do they take women…?”

“There’s been female felons incarcerated there.”

Felons. She was a felon. “Are they kept separate from the men?”

“I have no time for this, Miss Rowena. Not now. I’ve got to go back to the courthouse. We can talk in the evening.”

She watched him go, listened to his footsteps fade away, each muted thud stirring up guilt and doubt within her. “You can’t have your cake and eat it,” her father used to say. When she’d asked him to explain, he’d told her it meant that when a person faced two divergent paths, they could only follow one.

She’d chosen to protect Claude and Eugene. And in doing so she had betrayed her friends and neighbors. Don’t fall for those lies , she had wanted to yell at everyone. They are conmen. Fraudsters. But a greater loyalty had sealed her lips. She’d told herself it didn’t matter if people lost money, because the sums were small, easily afforded by the victims.

And then, when the angry mob had surrounded Eugene, and Claude had stumbled and fallen, unable to fire the shot required to make the charade complete, it had been no choice at all. She had acted upon instinct, the way one might jump into a river to save someone about to drown, and had assisted her friends in their escape.

And now she would have to face the consequences of her actions. What was Yuma penitentiary like? Horrors reeled through Rowena’s mind. Convicts, including murderers and rapists, gaining access to the female prisoners. Male guards taking liberties. Beatings. Poor food. Lack of medical care. Intrusive physical examinations.

She’d be twenty-six when she came out, and she might look like an old woman. Feel like an old woman, too—no future, no hope, nothing to look forward to. She couldn’t let it happen. Deftly, bursting into action, Rowena bent over, rummaged beneath her skirts and extracted a tightly rolled document from a narrow pocket sewn into her petticoat.

Her father’s will, leaving Twin Springs to her. She had treasured the document, believing one day she would go back, find a way to fight for what was hers. Now those dreams had to be swept aside in the face of greater necessity.

She would ask the attorney, Mr. Carpenter, to sell the land on her behalf. He would come to see her if the sheriff sent out word. Slowly, her panic subsided. Everything would turn out all right. Claude and Eugene would be safe. Everyone would get their money back. She would have lost any chance of reclaiming Twin Springs, but those chances had been slim anyway.

Pacing the cell, Rowena waited for the sheriff to return. Outside, the light gained midday brightness and then dimmed again. No visitors came. No one brought her food. Either everyone was too busy at the courthouse, or they had turned their backs on her.

Finally, voices. She rushed to the iron grille, pressed her face between the bars and yelled into the corridor. “Sheriff Macklin! Sheriff Macklin!”