Deborah Bedford - Blessing

Her business clearly settled, Elizabeth Calderwood turned and asked directions to the jailhouse.

Everybody answered at once.

Surprisingly enough, Elizabeth Calderwood seemed to have a fine head atop her shoulders. She sorted through all their mumbling and ended up going exactly the right way.

“That gal’s about the prettiest gal I’ve ever seen,” Charlie Hastings whispered.

“Seeing a woman like that is enough to make you clean up every once in a while, isn’t it?” Dave McNalley joined in.

Uley had never dreamed grown men could act this way. As Elizabeth Calderwood proceeded toward the jailhouse, she hung back, wondering what it would feel like to get so much attention. The attention she’d gotten after she’d jumped on Aaron Brown and sent him flying was one thing. This was more than mere respect. This was awe. She figured it would be nice to have men—a man—look at her that way. She figured it would be nice to walk with petticoats swishing against her ankles like stream water. She figured it would be nice to have her hair bounce free at the nape of her neck and have curls encircled with ribbons.

She wondered what it would feel like to peer into a store window at all the fineries that a genuine lady expected, and to admit to yourself and to everybody around you that you would enjoy having such things.

It had been bad enough thinking of Aaron Brown inside that jail, knowing he was fully aware of her secret. Now, here came Elizabeth Calderwood prancing into town, making her think of any number of feminine practices! As Uley left behind the gaggle of men proceeding along the streets, she wondered what it might feel like to love a man who was going to die by hanging. Uley didn’t figure that was anything she’d ever have to know.

* * *

“Just look at you, Aaron Brown,” Elizabeth said, her nose stuck between two iron bars, her hands reaching to a place on either side of his face. “I’ve never seen anybody who needed to see a bucket of bathwater so badly.”

He grimaced. “It’s true. If I’d known you were coming out here, I’d have put on my best Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes. Best not touch me with your gloves, Beth. I’ll get them dirty.”

“Who cares.” She laughed and encased his grimy cheeks with all her fingers. “I’ve come two hundred and fifty miles in a supply wagon and you’re worried about me getting my gloves dirty? I thought I might never see you alive again. Just let me keep looking at your face.”

He sighed, a long, forlorn chuff of air. “Here I am, still waiting to hang. You’ve got at least one more day to look at my face all you want to.”

“I might even have longer than that, Aaron. I’ve hired a lawyer for your defense.” She saw his horrified expression and went right on talking. She wasn’t going to give him the chance to holler at her for spending all that money. “I’ve also taken care of your charges down at the Grand Central Hotel.”

“Please, Beth, I’m perfectly capable of defending myself.”

“Of course you are,” she said emphatically, at last drawing her hands away from him. “That’s why you wrote me a letter to explain why you were already dead.”

He opened his mouth here, then clamped it shut again. She did offer a good argument.

“No,” she said, seeing his response. “We aren’t going to do it your way. You’re worth so much more to me than that.”

“I didn’t want you coming here. That isn’t the reason I wrote.”

Tears gathered in her eyes. It was the first time in two weeks she’d let herself cry about this. She’d been afraid after she got his letter that she’d start bawling like a mama cow and she’d never be able to stop. “I never would have made it in time if not for that spring snowstorm.”

“I figure,” he said quietly, “that storm was the answer to a prayer for some folks.”

“An answer to a great many of them. How on earth did you get a letter posted so quickly?”

Aaron smiled at her through the bars, once more thinking of Uley. “I found someone who would help me.”

“So you said.”

“A youngster. Uley.” It was all he was going to say to her. He’d promised Uley never to reveal her secret. With all she’d done, she’d earned his vow. And by the solid ground under his feet, he would keep it with Beth, too. He heard someone coming toward them. “That’ll be Olney,” he told Beth.

He didn’t have time to say anything else. The marshal himself came in and gripped Elizabeth’s arm.

“Harris,” she said.

Eyes on eyes. Cold on cold. Like steel locked up against steel.

“Beth,” Olney said. “I tried to keep you from getting involved in this.”

“Aren’t you going to welcome me to Tin Cup, Harris?”

“Don’t reckon I will. I’m not real glad to see you.”

“Didn’t figure you would be.”

“Why did you let him follow me all the way out here? You’re the one with the cool head on your shoulders.”

“A man’s got to do what a man’s got to do, Harris. It isn’t a woman’s place to stand in the way.” Remembering the matter at hand, Beth untied the strings of her reticule. “Now tell me the amount of his bail so we can get paid up.”

Aaron stood behind her, looking at Olney over one of her delicate chintz-clad shoulders. Harris looked back and forth between the matching sets of eyes, both stubborn, both just as blue and clear as the water running down Willow Creek.

“You’re a stubborn woman, Elizabeth.”

“You did set bail, didn’t you?”

“Of course I did,” he said. “I just didn’t figure on anybody being around to meet it.”

“You’d best give me the figure, Harris.”

He stuck out his palm. “I just raised it to five hundred dollars.”

“All right, then,” she said boldly, handing him the bills. “Here it is.”

Aaron raked his fingers through his hair. “You shouldn’t be walking around with that much money. Anyone might have robbed you.” Fully half the people around here were no-good or bandits, come here to Tin Cup to chase the elusive promise of gold. They’d just as soon get money jumping someone in the streets as digging holes in the mountains.

Elizabeth laughed at him. “There are thirty men out in front of the jailhouse waiting to escort me to my next destination. I don’t suppose it would be safe for any one of them to ‘jump on me,’ Aaron. There would be twenty-nine others waiting to bring the one to justice. Now, Harris, I suggest you bring the key and unlock Aaron so that we may be on our way.”

Olney grudgingly obliged. “If it was up to me,” he grumbled, “I wouldn’t be letting you out, Brown.”

Elizabeth held out one gloved palm. “I’d like a receipt for my bail money, Harris.”

“We don’t have anything as fancy as receipts.”

“I would like a guarantee on my money. When Aaron shows up for his trial, I want every cent of it back.”

“Women! We don’t have any paper.” Elizabeth pulled two sheets of onionskin paper from her purse and handed them to Olney. The marshal hung the keys back on the peg, dipped his pen in the inkwell and began to scribble.

I, Aaron—a blotch—Brown, do solemnly swear to be at the Tin Cup Town Hall for the trial—another blotch—murdering Marshal Harris Olney by shooting him in the back.

“How can you write something about me murdering you? You’re standing right in front of me wording the thing.”

“Well, I’ve got to make you sign something now that I’ve turned you loose. Got to make sure you’ll come back for the trial.”

“Here.” Aaron reached for a second sheet of paper. “I’ll write it.”

“You go right ahead.” Harris dipped the pen and handed it to him.

I, Aaron Brown, do solemnly swear to appear at the Tin Cup Town Hall on the scheduled date at the scheduled hour to attend a trial in the court of law...