Chapter 24

24

Dakota was going to die.

He accepted that. Unless a miracle happened.

But Maeve. His prayers were all for Maeve.

Every fear he'd had about finding a normal life, including a wife, and bringing her under the Darnells' guns was happening right now.

The man with Ezra rode up beside Dakota and jerked his gun out of his holster. He kept his own gun leveled at Dakota. Being almost for sure a Darnell, Dakota figured him for a mean man willing to pull the trigger. In fact, Dakota was surprised they were bothering to get him out of town instead of just shooting him down and riding off.

They rode out of Cheyenne straight west. They kept the row of businesses that included the dry-goods shop between them and Brandon. Ezra clearly didn't want to gun Dakota down in the street. He planned to get him away from witnesses before he killed him. It didn't take long. They'd cleared the last building in town and were riding hard for the foothills he'd heard someone call the Laramies.

Ezra Darnell had Maeve and was hanging back as they galloped toward the hills. Ahead, Dakota saw boulders and thick woods, broken land, rises, and gullies. If they got in there just a few paces ahead of pursuit, they could get lost and never be found.

Not only would Ezra find plenty of places to hide but he'd also find places to take cover and shoot anyone coming after him.

Dakota prayed that Jake wasn't coming after them.

He would be. Dakota knew Jake well. He knew the heart of the man, the courage, the loyalty. Jake would come. But he shouldn't.

He shouldn't abandon his wife and Ginny, his children, not when they were in danger from Rutledge.

Riding up front like this, Dakota couldn't make a move without Ezra seeing him and harming Maeve.

The man who'd disarmed Dakota hadn't taken his only gun, just the handiest.

"Head for the draw between those two hills," Ezra shouted from behind Dakota.

Dakota looked back at the man who rode just behind him. "Are you Ezra's son?"

The man glared at Dakota with those same black eyes. Those eyes and that beak of a nose were strong traits in the Darnell family. "Grandson. Name's Raul. Vic was my cousin. C'mon, pick up the pace."

"Are you all outlaws?" Dakota was trying to think of something to say, but no brilliant words jumped into his head that would be just the right thing to stop them.

"No, we're not. I helped build the railroad. Then I worked in a slaughterhouse in Denver until my grandpa asked me to help him end this."

"Vic was robbing a bank," Dakota said. "I didn't set out to kill him. He was shooting up a town because he was cornered. The sheriff was trying to bring him in without bloodshed. Vic just wouldn't stop."

"Sounds like him." Raul shook his head. "Fool kid. He was the youngest of us." The man jabbed his gun at the approaching draw. "Through there."

"Why are you doing this? You have to understand that he was going to die." Dakota wanted to tell Raul plenty of bullets went into his cousin.

Picking Dakota out for their feud was a foolish decision. But if he said as much, told of other bullets, would they then seek revenge on others they might imagine had a hand in Vic's death? Dakota couldn't be responsible for that.

It wouldn't help anyway. They'd just kill him and then start in on those others.

"How many of you Darnells are there anyway?"

"Grandpa and I and one of Grandpa's sons, Uncle Mort, who's Vic's pa. And Vic's got a brother, too, Tyrus. Grandpa Ezra sent out letters when he heard about Vic. Grandpa didn't know where you were. But he caught your scent when he stopped to wait for me to get here from Denver."

Dakota thought that might mean Grandpa and Raul here didn't know he'd killed two Darnells already—besides Vic. Mort for sure, and was the other one Tyrus? He tried to think. His heart was pounding with fear for Maeve. It was muddling his brain.

What could he do? What could he say that would stop all this?

"I was the guide of a wagon train for a stretch of years. Did you go west on the Oregon Trail? You're from Kentucky, right?"

"Yep. Cumberland Mountains. I lived there through the War Between the States, then ran off west when living with Pa and his hard fists got to be more than a man could bear. I rode the Oregon Trail but not in a wagon. I headed for Denver, and there I stayed."

Dakota nodded. Raul didn't sound purely evil, not like a man who wanted to be a killer. He was a working man after all. "Are you married?"

"Nope, but I've got a sweetheart. I figured I'd be gone so long with Grandpa she wouldn't wait for me, though I asked her to."

"You're not a killer, Raul. Why do you want to start married life with a murder on your hands."

"Ain't murder if'n you deserve it." Raul squared his shoulders and thrust his jaw out. Dakota thought the man showed these signs of determination only because he was forcing himself to.

"It's murder all right. And it's the kind of thing that leaves a scar on a man's soul. You're going to go back to Denver and try to start a life with a young woman, but for the rest of your days you'll carry the knowledge that you killed an innocent man. You killed an unarmed man. You killed a man in an unfair fight. And you'll be harming your wife while you're at it. Remembering all that will wake you up at night. It'll make your spirit heavy. It'll change you, Raul. You don't have to do this."

"Sometimes a man's gotta stand with his family." Raul sounded bitter. "Even if it does add a weight to himself. Now keep your mouth shut and ride."

Dakota looked over his shoulder at the man riding a few paces behind him. His attention moved to Maeve, whose eyes were wide with horror as she looked at him.

"You know these men?"

"Face forward." Ezra leveled his gun on Maeve. "And both of you, shut up!"

They rounded a pile of boulders and a copse of trees, then were swallowed up by a land more rugged than Dakota would have expected from this part of Wyoming.

"They're heading toward our land." Seb rode hard beside Jake on his left.

Jake couldn't remember Seb being such a skilled rider. Hooves thundered as they pushed hard. Jake could see the tracks, but he knew he was taking a risk. The men who'd taken Dakota and Maeve might turn off, yet it made sense they'd run for a hideout, and on this stretch of flatland heading west, a hideout was going to be in the foothills ahead.

The trail split, but both paths went toward the mountains, growing ever taller in front of them. Soon they covered the whole western sky.

Jake pulled his horse to a stop, hopped down, and studied a well-worn trail and a smaller, rockier trail that led slightly northwest. Three horses. The tinsmith had said three, and the tracks confirmed it.

One of them was carrying double. A woman slung over the saddle.

"The tracks follow the smaller trail." Jake swung up onto his horse and looked at Sebastian. "Can you read sign?"

"I'm not bad, but Kat's better."

Kat caught up to them on Sebastian's left. Brand rode up on Jake's right.

Brand must've heard Jake's question. "I can read sign, too. I was taught by a former U.S. Marshal and his brother—two of the finest trackers in Wyoming. We won't lose their trail."

Kat said, "I spent the first year out here tracking an elk herd and got to be good at reading a trail." She pointed well ahead of them. "I think I see a bit of dust in the air. That has to be them."

She looked from Sebastian to Jake, then to Brand. "Do you see it?"

"I do. But this trail is grass-covered, and the wind is just enough that no dust would hang in the air for long."

"I'm relieved to be with two skilled trackers," said Jake. "And, Brand, we're as close as we are because of your quick thinking and fast actions." Jake felt like he should send Brand away, but the man looked determined and so Jake let it go.

"That dust, if it's from them, leads to a trail between those hills." Kat pointed ahead. "They'll go there. And the land is rugged past it. We need to close the gap."

"One of those three horses has Maeve and the kidnapper on it. That's hard on a horse. They won't make the best time."

Jake studied the ground, then looked at what he hoped was dust from those they were chasing. "Let's pick up the pace."

"Did you hear Oscar say he didn't like the way those men of the jury were looking at Rutledge and his lawyer?" Nell asked Beth and Ginny.

Beth nodded. "I thought the same thing a couple of times. Three of them gave Dr. Horecroft a familiar sort of look."

"I saw it. I noticed it, too, in the men I dismissed from the jury. But these men were more careful at first. But not careful enough afterward. That's why I talked to the sheriff. I asked him to check around town for those three on the jury. He knew who each man was. I asked him to see if any of them had flashed money around town the night Rutledge got to Cheyenne."

Ginny's jaw tightened. "I wouldn't put it past my husband to hand out coins to a crowd of men and tell them to go volunteer to serve on the jury."

Mr. Etherton and Dr. Snider escorted them toward the jail. When they reached the door, Dr. Snider said, "I'm going now to talk to the lawmen I know."

After he left, Mr. Etherton gripped the doorknob. He looked at Ginny. "Ready?"

She gave a firm nod of her head.

"Wait a minute." Nell wasn't quite sure what they were doing here. But there was something about Ginny giving orders that reminded Nell of her own mother. "Before we go in to see your husband, I assume to wring some admission out of him concerning your friends, you need to know that all your husband would need is for one juror to find you insane." Distracted by that thought, she added, "Juries rule on guilt or innocence, not sanity or insanity. Strange business to have a trial like this. Bringing you before a judge and jury is called habeas corpus ."

"What?" Ginny asked. "Corpus sounds like corpse , and I don't like the sound of that."

Mr. Etherton gave Nell a pat on the back. "You know the law, Judge Nolte. Not all judges do." He turned to Ginny. "Habeas corpus is an order for a prisoner to be brought before a judge. Usually it pertains to whether being imprisoned can be allowed to go on. It translates to ‘produce the body.' More literally it means ‘you shall have the body.' It's not corpse like a dead body, but corpus , which in Latin simply means ‘body.' So a prisoner is brought before a judge for that judge to rule on whether he remains a prisoner."

"Horecroft Insane Asylum was very much a prison. But unlike a true prison, I had no trial, no judge or jury, just Thaddeus and Dr. Horecroft deciding my fate." Ginny sighed. "I got away, but part of the reason I came out of hiding is that asylum is still full of women. Some of them are sane and being kept there by cruel relatives."

Nell considered that. "If the sane ones are freed, won't they be sent home to their cruel relatives, the very ones who locked them up to begin with?"

Ginny turned tired eyes to Nell. "That's a good question."

"And if Horecroft's asylum treats the truly mad in a way that's wrong, then how do they get better treatment?"

Ginny and Beth exchanged a long look. "We don't know how to help those poor troubled souls," Ginny admitted.

Beth spoke up. Nell could tell she was hesitant. "One of the other ladies from the asylum is living in our canyon. I think she would qualify as someone who is truly mad. She eats with us, comes to church with us, but she stays back. She's real wary. And if you touch her, she goes berserk. She once spoke of her husband, and he must've abused her until he drove her mad. Or maybe she was already mad. We have no idea. Either way, he had her locked away in the asylum. But living in the canyon, with no one touching her, might be healing her. At least she's not subject to further abuse.

"She lives in a cave with a hot spring in one room so she's warm in the winter and can take a bath. We keep her in dresses, and she sings along with us at our Sunday morning meetings. For the most part, she seems rational, though very quiet and withdrawn. It makes me wonder if troubled women like her just need a safe, peaceful place, some compassion and understanding." Beth looked at Ginny. "We could see about having Dr. Horecroft arrested, then go bring every woman in that place, the sane and insane alike, to our canyon. Let them live out their lives there."

Ginny sighed. "I'd like to rescue them all, but bringing fifty women, a good chunk of them unwell, home with us? We'd better consult Oscar and Jake first." She glanced at the jailhouse door. "Let's go inside."

The door to the jail swung open. Nell saw that, except for Mr. Etherton, every one of them had a gun drawn.