Love of a Cowboy 1 Page 21

  “Tell me what happened,” she demanded.

  He drew in a breath, let it out slowly. “‘Tis done. A man is dead. What does it matter how?”

  “Tell me! I need to know!”

  His hands trembled. He clasped them together. “I wasn’t thinkin’, Morgan. Hatred - ‘tis a terrible thing. When I saw him, what he was doin’ to my little girl, I couldn’a think. I drew me gun, and I shouted at him to stop. When he didn’t, I… I pulled the trigger.”

  Morgan stared at him. Had he shot the man in the back, as the confession claimed? She’d have shot the man right below the belt, if she’d had the chance. But Jack would not have endangered Hannah. The man must have moved. He had to have. Then she saw that blood crusted on Jack’s sleeve.

  “You’re hurt!” she blurted.

  He glanced at his arm, barely noticing it.

  “How were you hurt,” she insisted. Jack seemed disoriented. How much blood had he lost?

  “He had a gun, I think,” he murmured. “‘Tis all fuzzy in me brain now. I dinna remember.”

  “He shot you? Then it was self-defense!”

  “A man is still dead,” he whispered.

  “Yes! An evil man is dead! But don’t let a good man suffer for it!”

  “Take the children home, Morgan. There is nothing for ye here.”

  “I’ll be back. You just rest. And don’t give up!”

  Jack stood slowly. He came to the edge of his cell, reaching his cuffed hands through the bars to touch her cheek. Tears glistened on his face. “Take care of them, wife. Ye’re all they have left.”

  Morgan rushed out, before she fell apart in front of him.

  The sheriff seemed surprised when she told him of Jack’s injury. She wondered if he’d had any training or experience before he took office. Weston Corners was a small hole of humanity, but surely they could not have found a more inept man if they’d tried. She watched while the sheriff treated Jack’s shoulder, a shallow flesh wound made by a bullet’s graze. The knowledge that Jack had been injured didn’t stop the building of the gallows, though. The sheriff claimed that the dying man may have gotten off a shot, that he may have been the one to shoot in self-defense.

  Jack had a reputation for shooting at people. They thought he was reckless and hotheaded, and his impulsiveness finally got him in trouble. Nobody in town liked him. She had known that before she met him. To them, he was an odd nut, an eccentric. And a Catholic. He was a shepherd in cattle country. He was a family man in man’s country. There were a dozen excuses to hang him, the main one being that they hadn’t had a hanging in ages, and there was nothing better to do.

  She couldn’t take the children home, although the town had become a frightening place for them. Hannah no longer cried, but she wouldn’t get out of bed. She bathed and bathed, scrubbing her skin raw in her desire to feel clean. Morgan burned her ruined dress, quickly remodeling a new one for her, but Hannah refused to put it on.

  Kate cried for her, furious with the man for not taking her instead.

  “Oh, baby, you don’t mean that,” Morgan soothed, trying to comfort her.

  “I would have fought back! I’d have kicked and screamed and bit and I wouldn’t have let him touch me! But Hannah’s not brave like that. Her daddy used to beat her all the time.”

  “Jack?” Morgan stared at Kate as though she’d grown horns.

  “No. Her real daddy. Before she came to live with us.”

  “So, Hannah is adopted?”

  Kate stared at her. “We all are, Mama.”

  Of course. It made perfect sense. It was how he could look so young and have a thirteen year-old daughter. It was how he had five children who looked nothing like each other. It was how he could be as innocent as she was on their marriage night. Dear, sweet, compassionate Jack, gathering stray children to his hearth the way some folks collected dogs or cats.

  Morgan checked the mercantile again and again until Jimmy’s response finally came over the telegraph. He’d contacted a marshal, who should arrive shortly to take over Jack’s case. Tears filled Morgan’s eyes and spilled down her face. Jack wasn’t free yet, but at least he would have a trial before being sentenced. Jimmy promised to send money to cover the fees for a good lawyer, too. Morgan crushed the telegram to her breast and rushed back to the jail.

  “Look, Jack! Read this!” she cried, shoving the paper through the bars.

  He stared at it vacantly. He didn’t even rise from the cot, as though he had grown old overnight.

  “Jack? Please, love! You have to read this,” she begged. “My brother Jimmy is going to help!”

  “I can’t,” he said miserably. He lay back on the cot, one arm draped over his eyes. He hadn’t been allowed to shave or wash up in two days, and the beard stubble was already hiding his handsome face. Morgan hurt for him. She grabbed the bars of his cell and shook with all her might, which barely even made them rattle.

  “Yes, you can! You’ve got to fight this! Our children need you!”

  “I can’t read,” he said, his voice growing stronger.

  It shouldn’t have surprised her. He’d obviously been orphaned while still a child himself. He’d suspected Barney of cheating, but hadn’t done a thing about it. He hadn’t written that ridiculous confession either. He’d merely put an X next to his name, all that the hateful townspeople had needed to hang him. “Father McDougal wrote those letters,” she stated.

  “Aye.”

  She read the telegram then, and explained it to him. “It means that you have a right to a fair trial. Even if you are guilty! That’s one of the basic rights of being American. Killing is wrong, but there are times when it is justified. You shot in self-defense. You went after him to protect your daughter. You should not have to suffer for that.”

  “But how can I live wi’ his blood upon me hands?”

  “You have to, Jack. Because I can’t live without you!”

  Jack slumped back onto the cot. “I be right tired. Think I’ll sleep a spell.”

  Morgan didn’t believe for a minute that he would be able to, but she had much to do. First she had to bribe the sheriff to let her spend the night with Jack. Then she bundled up the children and took them home, leaving Lee in charge with a loaded gun for protection. She returned to town, darkness already settling around the completed gallows, a threatening monument just beyond the small window of Jack’s cell.

  The sheriff let her in to see Jack, then locked the jailhouse, granting them privacy for the night, but he refused to remove the handcuffs. Jack’s wrists were raw from the heavy shackles. The chains clinked every time he moved, a solemn backdrop to his depression.

  Morgan stood before him. Slowly, sensually, she undid the buttons, pulled off her blue, for-church dress, the layers of petticoats and her camisole. She thought she saw a flicker of passion spark in Jack’s empty eyes. Emboldened, she stepped between the vee of his thighs. She knelt down and tugged at his belt. Pulling it from the loops on his trousers, she folded the leather strap in half and caressed it. Jack gripped her wrists to stop her.

  “Please,” he breathed.

  She was doing this for his own good. “You promised me a spanking, my husband. For trying to out-cheat a cheat. Since you might not have another opportunity to give it to me, you’d best do it now.”

  “Not here, Morgan. I told ye we’d wait for the woodshed.”

  “Which you don’t expect to see again. Please, sir. I need you to punish me!”

  Jack rose to his feet. He staggered once before he straightened, as though his legs were too weak to support him. He held his belt in his hands, turning it, staring at it. She felt his eyes upon her naked flesh. Her nipples puckered. Gooseflesh pricked at her arms and heat gathered in her groin. She plumped his pillow, setting it in the center of his cot, then lay face down, her hips raised on his pillow.

  For long moments she waited. She felt embarrassed in the awkward position. What would she do if he refused? What if she saved his life, but lost his sou
l? What if she couldn’t get her Jack back?

  And then without warning the belt blazed across the backs of her legs. Morgan yelped, rising up on her knees. The belt struck again, driving her back down. A wide band of pain burned across her bottom. She shoved her fist in her mouth, not wanting to scream and bring the sheriff running back inside.

  Jack swung his belt with deadly accuracy. Leather snapped and bit into her flesh. He hadn’t started with a hand spanking to warm her up, and the whipping was already raising welts and breaking the skin. She cried, begging him to forgive her, but never once did she ask him to stop. He wasn’t mad at her, she knew. She didn’t think he was even mad at the dead man, for his anger was turned inward. And so she gave him an outlet for his fury. She might not sit for a month, but it was a small price to pay if it saved the man she loved.

  Over and over the air whistled softly as the leather swung downward. The snap of leather against flesh was deceptively soft. Fire burned across her bottom. She stuffed the corner of his filthy sheet in her mouth to keep from screaming. Finally he tossed the belt aside. He drew her into his arms, awkward around the chain that bound his wrists. Morgan cried for the pain she felt, for the pain her husband carried still in his heart. She cried for the days and nights they’d lost, and prayed they would have time yet together.

  “I dinna know what t’ do!” he gasped, crying as hard as she.

  “You’ll fight to live!” she said quickly. “And you will live!” She took his hand then and placed it on her swelling belly. “Your child needs you!”

  His mouth opened, but no sound came out. There was no sound anywhere. No air moved through the bars of his cell window. No man walked in the dusty street. No horses nickered, no coyotes howled at the moonless, cloudless night. She hadn’t wanted to tell him like this. He already had enough to deal with, maybe the responsibility of yet another mouth to feed would prove to be too much for the young man. But then he grinned foolishly.

  “A bairn? Ye’ve given me a bairn?”

  “Aye,” she said, smiling through her tears.

  “Is this what ye’ve been keepin’ from me?”

  She nodded.

  “If ye weren’t so bruised already, I’d whip ye again!”

  It was Morgan’s turn to look scared. “Why? What for?”

  He crushed her to him, burying his face in her hair. “Ye’ve been so distant of late. I thought ye’d regretted yer vows wi’ me.”

  “No, Jack! Never! Meeting you is the best thing that’s ever happened to me! But I was worried. And I guess I didn’t trust you to provide for yet another child.”

  Jack lifted her, settled her on his lap, and hugged her. He kissed her face, her forehead, her hair. “Ye’ll learn ta trust me, wife. Or I’ll have yer hide.” He grinned then, tears streaming tracks down his dirt-streaked face. “A bairn! I’m goin’ ta have a wee bairn!”

  Their lovemaking that night was desperate, as they tried to comfort one another in the face of death.

  Chapter 7:

  Everything was changing too fast. Morgan walked about in a daze, afraid just to get out of bed in the morning. The marshal had come, and quickly moved Jack to a prison in the city. He said something about Jack not being able to have a fair trial in the small town where he’d already been judged and condemned.

  Morgan used part of Jimmy’s money to hire a herdsman to stay with the sheep. Then she bundled up the children and moved to be near Jack. She lost weight, for even when she could manage to eat, she didn’t often keep it down. The doctor scolded her, and told her to take better care of herself or she could lose the baby. Morgan wept in his office. She sobbed into her pillow at night when the children were sound asleep. She cried while she waited outside the jail to see Jack. But she never cried in front of the children. They needed her to be strong.

  If she’d known how long they would be there, she might have found a house for rent, but she lived only from one day to the next, never knowing her future. She rented a small hotel suite - two adjoining rooms - and gave the children the larger of the two. Even so, her narrow bed felt lonely.

  “You ought to enroll them in school,” the waitress commented one morning when she brought them their breakfast.

  Lee groaned, but Bridget perked right up. “School? Can we go, Mama? There’s lots of other children at school, ain’t so?”

  Morgan didn’t want to do it. Putting them in school implied permanence. They wouldn’t be staying here, only until her husband was freed. But at least while they were in school, someone else would be watching over them for a while, so she could be with Jack.

  The school was larger than the country one she’d attended back in Pennsylvania, but not much so. Six classrooms, each class a separate grade, except the youngest grade had primary and first together. Bridget and Lee were both put there, since neither of them could read. Hannah and Kate weren’t reading yet, either, but the headmaster could not see putting such big girls in a room with the youngest children. Instead, they were put in fourth grade together, and given extra instruction at recess and lunch to try to catch them up. Morgan promised to work with them at night, as well. He scowled at her, but the girls defended her, explaining that she had only been their mama for a little while.

  The school was three blocks from the hotel. It was hard for Lee to get there, and he missed his pony, but horses weren’t allowed at the school. Sometimes Morgan walked with him, and led his pony back to the livery where Tubs and the two mules were boarded. Sometimes Lee just had to struggle on his own. She was stunned to see him one morning, riding piggyback on the shoulders of a much bigger boy, his crutches tucked under his arm. The boy smiled at Kate in a way that made Morgan’s stomach twist, but Kate ignored him. She didn’t like boys at all. Yet.

  Rebecca was too young for school. Morgan considered finding a day nursery for her, but she couldn’t justify the expense. She wouldn’t have managed at all without the money her brother continued to send, and she knew her husband would resent every penny of it if he knew. She couldn’t lie to him. But she hoped he just wouldn’t ask.

  She bundled Rebecca in the leather sheepskin coat Jack had made. She tied a homespun yarn scarf around her head and tugged on a pair of woolen mittens. “We’re going bye-bye,” she said to the little girl.

  Rebecca stared at her, her face devoid of expression.

  “We’re going to see your papa now. Would you like to bring a toy?”

  Still no response. Morgan picked up a rag doll and a wood puzzle Jack had made for her, and tucked them in her bag. She held the little girl’s hand and walked down the street to the big brick building that housed the sheriff’s office and the jail.

  The front room was spacious. A few stiff wooden chairs and benches lined the walls, but mostly they were empty. Occasionally someone came to sit in one, waiting for an uncle or father who’d been picked up for drinking and disorderly conduct to be released so they could take him home. They were curt, impatient, and focused only on their own problems. They had no time to spare a pregnant woman and her little girl. Morgan didn’t mind. She couldn’t engage in idle small talk in the stark surroundings. How could she talk about the weather, when her husband’s life hung by a rope?

  Beyond the spacious room was the sheriff’s office. He could be found inside most of the time, where he yelled at the deputies when he didn’t have anything else to do. Once in a while they’d leave to break up a fight or patrol the streets, but mostly they just sat in the office.

  Every ten minutes Morgan would go pound on the door. The sheriff snapped at her to go home. She sat, waiting for the minute hand on the clock to move, then she’d pound again. Eventually, he’d give up, and grant her a brief visit with Jack. He wouldn’t let Rebecca go back there, though. He shocked Morgan when he offered to keep the child with him.

  She wasn’t allowed in the cell with Jack, but had to talk to him through the bars. His eyes lit up briefly just looking at her. But then he scowled and turned his back. “Go home, Morgan. Take the chi
ldren wi’ ye. ‘Tis no place for them here.”

  “No, Jack. I’m not going without you,” she said stubbornly. If only her denial would spark a response. He should scold her for disobeying him, threaten to turn her over his knee and teach her a lesson with the flat of his hand, but he did nothing. She hurt for him. He was a lamb in a wolves’ den, an innocent sharing the same air with drunks and thieves and murderers. It was so wrong!

  She ignored the lewd comments and catcalls the other prisoners made, as she told Jack the little details of her day. “Bridget loves school,” she said. “She’s having some difficulty learning the alphabet, but her teacher gave me the name of a special eye doctor. She thinks Bridget might need glasses.

  “Lee is in the same grade, which he hates, but I think he misses his pony more than anything else. His arms get so tired. Sometimes at night his shoulders are cramped so tight, I have to wrap them in steamy towels to comfort him. I think he’s getting stronger, though.”

  “Take them home,” Jack said solemnly.

  “No, Jack.” Then she told him about Hannah and Kate, about the room they rented, about the older boy that had a crush on Kate. A deputy called her three times to say her time was up, and finally had to come escort her away. “I’ll be back tomorrow, love,” she promised.

  “No, you won’t,” the deputy replied.

  But she was.

  And eventually the other prisoners stopped giving her catcalls. A hush settled in the prison, and they pressed at the edges of their cells to hear her simple tales of life on the outside. Although they’d ridiculed Jack at first, now they treated him with a respect that bordered on awe. A young pup like him had the love of a wonderful woman. There must be more to him than met the eye.

  Jack’s depression worried her most. She sent out letters all over the diocese as she tried to track down Father McDougal. She knew he was an itinerant priest with a huge area to cover, but he was many months overdue, and she’d learned that he was not a young man. Jack had known him since before his parents died. But just maybe the strange little holy man could give him God’s forgiveness. Then maybe he could learn to forgive himself.