Blessing Read online

  “We heard the dogs baying the next night, Mr. Violet. My husband grabbed his six-shooter and climbed atop the knoll. There he found Harris Olney digging into the indentation. Fred ordered him off.”

  “Continue,” Kincaid said, obviously stepping in front of the pacing Violet to assert his authority.

  Uley watched as Elizabeth’s eyes began to fill with tears. She dabbed at them with one corner of the hanky. “It is difficult to continue, Mr. Kincaid. Two days later, my husband mysteriously disappeared. Many of the fort’s residents saw a band of Utes roving across the valley. Harris volunteered to follow the tribe and spy on them, saying he believed they might have taken Fred captive. At the time, I didn’t understand how such a thing could be possible. The Utes were a friendly people. Fred greeted them often when they came past Fort Collins.” Her voice broke here, and she couldn’t go on.

  “Come on,” Violet hollered. “We haven’t got all day for this. I want to hang this lowlife tomorrow morning at sunrise.”

  The tirade clearly shored Elizabeth up. She lifted her chin and spoke, her eyes locked on Harris Olney’s as if he were the only man sitting in the room. “Three days later, he returned with my husband’s body. Harris said the Utes had killed Fred and left him on a post near their campsite. But I think he killed Fred—” there was a sudden uproar in the courtroom, and Judge Murphy was helpless to stop it “—while they journeyed together toward home.”

  “What are you saying, Beth?” Olney jumped from his seat. “I was the one who stepped in and helped you after Fred died. I was the one…”

  “You are the one who went back up on that knoll and dug up a man’s grave. I figure you would have stayed around digging forever if Aaron hadn’t come riding into town two days later, shouting about what he’d witnessed out in the wilderness.”

  “I had to know about that grave. A man has natural curiosities.”

  “This man—” Elizabeth said, pointing at Harris “—has natural greed. He killed my husband for a chance at gold, then carried his body into Fort Collins like a mourning friend.”

  Murphy thwacked his tin cup on the podium over and over again. “Order! Order!” Still Elizabeth and Harris squared off, shouting at one another over the din of the crowd.

  “Listen to me!” Harris shouted. “How can you say such things? I was in love with you, Beth! This has nothing to do with Fred.”

  Uley felt her heart plummet. This was torture of the worst kind, virtually unbearable. Was every man in the world in love with Elizabeth Calderwood? First Aaron, then a dead husband named Fred, and now even Harris Olney?

  “Order!” Murphy shouted, still banging the cup. “Order! Now! Or we won’t go on at all.” He began bellowing out names like an angry schoolmarm. “Wilson! You’re out of here. Toby! Right behind him. Charley Johnson! You, too. You can stay out in the street until you’re calm enough to be quiet and sit down.” He waited, stern-faced and solemn, while the men did his bidding. Then, at last, he turned to Elizabeth. “I fail to see what any of this has to do with Aaron Brown and the fact that he pulled a gun on our marshal.”

  “You see—” Elizabeth cast her eyes downward, meeting the inquisitive gazes of the spectators “—Aaron was afraid Harris would come to some harm at the hands of the Utes. He followed Harris up Poudre Canyon. He was just about to go in and help rescue both of them when he saw Harris and my husband leaving the Ute camp alive.”

  Nobody spoke for a good long while. Elizabeth sat in the chair, her hands clasped together, obviously fighting for composure. “So there you have it,” she went on shakily. “Harris didn’t know he had anything to fear until the hour Aaron rode back into town and confronted him with what he’d seen. Within the hour, Harris disappeared from Fort Collins. It took Aaron almost a year to find this man holed up here in Tin Cup, acting as if he liked upholding the law instead of breaking it.”

  Harris pounded upon the chair in front of him. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Beth! A woman’s mouth…”

  “I tried to convince Aaron not to come. Every man I’ve ever loved has been lost. I can tell you, sir, that Aaron never intended to murder Harris Olney. His only plan was to bring Harris back to Fort Collins to receive his just reward, in a courtroom just like this one.”

  “You’re certain of that?”

  “Yes, sir. I am. Aaron spoke of it at length to me and my mother, though we discouraged him in his endeavors. You could send for the pastor of our Baptist church, sir. We prayed about it constantly after Aaron left home, that some blessing would come along and stand in the way of what might become a bloody altercation. I believe that prayer was answered, though I see that God answers us in improbable ways. I never asked God to land my brother in jail and on trial for murder.”

  It took precious seconds for Elizabeth’s words to reach the thoughts in Uley’s head.

  I never asked God to land my brother in jail and on trial for murder.

  My brother…

  A wild thrum of expectation began to spread through Uley’s vitals. Her brother? Aaron Brown was Mrs. Elizabeth Calderwood’s brother?

  A tiny seed of hope began to grow within her, and with it came a totally unexpected outburst of joy.

  Who cared whether Aaron Brown had tried to do away with Harris Olney?

  She’d deal with that the next hour…the next day….

  For now, she only remembered the way Aaron Brown had examined her hair with one leather-tanned finger, the way he’d sprawled beside her in the grass, the way he’d examined her face as if his eyes could delve deep into her spirit.

  She felt a woman for the first time in her life.

  She felt an aching for the first time in her life…an anticipation.

  Elizabeth was his sister. A sister, one he might set out to love, protect and honor all his life in deference to the family name! Elizabeth, dainty, particular Elizabeth, with eyes like cornflowers and hair the color of midday sunshine, didn’t belong to Aaron at all except by blood relation.

  “So you see,” Elizabeth continued on the stand, her countenance regained, unaware of the turmoil and expectation her words launched in Uley Kirkland’s heart, “you cannot fault Aaron for what has happened here. He was only doing what he believed right…to protect and vindicate his sister by searching out the man who has taken a terrible toll from my own life.”

  Harris wasn’t taking things lying down. “You have no right to make accusations like that one, Beth. You don’t know what’s in my heart. You never—”

  Aaron was on his feet in an instant. The two men on either side of him jumped up to restrain him. “She was a married woman, Harris. Whatever your motivation was, you had no right to be bothering her. You put Beth in question. If you’d loved her truly, you never would have done that. Then, when her husband turned up dead—”

  “Stop it,” Elizabeth told them both. “I won’t have it from either of you. This isn’t the—”

  “Mr. Kincaid,” Judge Murphy said from the bench, “kindly dismiss Mrs. Calderwood and call the defendant forward. I have questions to ask the man myself.”

  “Yes, sir,” John Kincaid said, extending one hand to Elizabeth’s and helping her down. “I call the defendant, Mr. Aaron Talephas Brown, to the stand.”

  Aaron shook free of the two men who continued to hold him and walked forward with determined steps. He seemed a different man from the one Uley had peered at through the bars at the jailhouse. He wore the black suit she’d examined in his room down at the Grand Central Hotel, with a white linen shirt and the bolo tie—two black leather thongs gathered together by a dollar-sized circle of horn. Looped into his pocket she could see the gold chain leading to the watch inscribed by his mother.

  He’d cleaned up nicely.

  And determination did him justice, she thought, as he strode past her toward the witness stand, pausing—it was just a hint of a pause, really—beside her leg. Without even looking down, he seemed to know she was there.

  He strode on forward, his w
ide shoulders stretching the fabric of the coat, his dark hair cut in a straight line across the back of his neck to barely brush the stiff line of his collar. He lifted his Stetson off his head with one hand and held it there, while he put his other hand—a hand Uley remembered well, with fingers that were slim, and brown as honey oak—upon the Bible.

  “I, Aaron Talephas Brown, do solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth…” He turned sideways as he spoke. A crease in his hair from the seam in the Stetson circled his head like a halo. Uley could see he’d been to the barber. At the end of each sideburn, skin the same texture and color as a finely rubbed saddlebag gave way to a half inch of white where sun hadn’t recently touched his face.

  He positioned himself in the chair, his polished black boots set with heels and toes aligned, and for some reason—some unknown, wonderful reason—his eyes found hers.

  “I have a great many questions, Mr. Brown,” Judge J. M. Murphy stated, leaning so far forward on his hands to get a good look at the defendant that his elbows made him resemble an overgrown grasshopper. “Do you agree with the story your sister, Mrs. Elizabeth Calderwood, just gave witness to on this stand?”

  “I do, Your Honor.”

  “You came to Tin Cup in order to subdue Harris Olney and carry him back with you to a trial in Larimer County?”

  “I did, Your Honor.”

  “Why, then, did you have your gun drawn on him? Did you suppose you’d be more persuasive that way?”

  “I wouldn’t have approached Harris Olney in any other fashion, Your Honor. Harris is the marshal. I knew he’d be carrying a sidearm.”

  “Did you stop to think,” Murphy asked, “what it would look like when you pulled that gun?”

  “He was after me,” Harris shouted, outraged. “He’s always been after me.”

  “Sit down, Olney.” Murphy scowled down his nose at the marshal. “I’m the judge in this county, not you. I’ll thank you to remember that, or I’ll throw you into the street, too.” He turned back to the man on the stand. “Is there anybody you can think of, anybody at all, who saw what happened in that Ute camp? These men—” he nodded to indicate the jury “—need to hear the story from an impartial witness before they can make an honest decision.”

  “Yes. Old Dawson Hayes. He spends most his time trapping up and down the canyon, and he’s known to follow the Utes because they know the best places to find varmints.”

  “Where can we find this Mr. Hayes?” Murphy asked.

  “Probably out trading pelts with the Utes,” Harris hollered. “That Hayes is the craziest old man in Colorado. You can’t tell me you want to rest this case on—”

  “Out!” Murphy shouted. “Out! Didn’t I tell you to shut up and be quiet? I can’t run a trial in here with everybody jumping in like corn jumping in a fry pan! Out.”

  Harris jammed his hat on and headed for the door. “What is a trial for if you can’t get loud and express your mind about somebody?”

  “You’ve expressed your mind just fine,” Murphy said. “It’s Aaron Brown’s turn. Now out with you.”

  Harris stalked into the front foyer and stomped down the new wooden steps outside.

  Murphy waited until the top of Harris’s head passed by the last window. Then he sighed resignedly and leaned back in his seat. “Don’t see how we can go much further with this trial, Brown. We’ve got a pretty young lady here who says she’s your sister. Other than that, it’s his word against yours. And Olney’s word carries some weight here in Gunnison County.”

  “I’m aware of that,” Aaron told him.

  “You got any way to get word to Dawson Hayes? Could you send a message and get him here?”

  “I don’t know, Murphy. I don’t rightly know.”

  “Confound it.” Murphy rose and gazed down at the rows of miners below him. “A man’s got to have the wisdom of Solomon to do this job. Anybody here want to offer up an opinion?”

  “Yeah,” somebody shouted. “I’d like to hear what Dawson Hayes has to say.”

  “Me too,” somebody else chimed in.

  Uley looked from one side to another. Everybody around her seemed to agree. Her spirit felt as if it were sprouting wings, starting to soar. Everything good seemed to be showering down in one day. First, Elizabeth. Now, perhaps, a reprieve in Aaron’s trial. “Me too,” she hollered, raising one knotted fist into the air. “I want to hear what Hayes would tell us!”

  “That’s it, then,” Murphy bellowed, rapping the wood one last time with his cup. “Your decision is also mine.” He clasped his hands behind his lower spine and began to pace back and forth. “We’ll give Dawson Hayes three weeks, Brown. That’s all.”

  Three weeks, Uley thought. Only three weeks? It would take Hayes almost that long just to get here.

  “If this fellow arrives in Tin Cup willing to tell his side of the story, we’ll listen to it.”

  “That’ll give me a fighting chance,” Aaron said.

  Murphy hurried to finish before the ruckus began all over again. “If that man doesn’t show his face in this town by three p.m. on the seventeenth of May, we’ll call this jury back together and get these men to make a decision based on what they know. I’m not waiting all summer to resolve this problem. In three weeks, it’ll all be over—one way or another.”

  The confusion began in earnest. The men bellowed and slapped each other in greeting. In one corner of the town hall, a good fist-slugging fight was beginning to heat up.

  Aaron rose, shook Murphy’s hand with a firm grasp and began to make his way toward the door. Elizabeth elbowed her way through the crowd to follow him. All around Uley, men were fishing money out of their pockets and making wagers.

  “Two dollars says he’ll hang.”

  “Three bits says that man Hayes’ll never show his face this side of the Divide.”

  “I’ll take you up on that. Three bits says Hayes’ll come but Brown’ll hang anyway. Olney ain’t gonna let any man get away with what he’s tryin’ to do.”

  “Four dollars says the man stands a chance. He’s gotten this far, after all.”

  “Nope. I’ll go the round with you. Four dollars says it’s a hanging jury. We’ll be watching Brown swing from a cottonwood tree May the eighteenth.”

  Uley pushed her way past all of them, sickening at the thought that Aaron Brown’s life had been reduced to an object of entertainment and speculation. If there had been a preacher in this town, the men wouldn’t have been wagering in the streets. In her heart of hearts, she had to admit Aaron might be telling the truth. After she’d detained him, pitched him down and sat upon him, he very well might have killed her—if he’d been intent on gunning Olney down.

  Perhaps, perhaps, he hadn’t been.

  It seemed as if Uley’s life had irrevocably rushed ahead of her, in one day—no, in four short hours.

  Laura knew Uley had been born a female.

  Uley knew Elizabeth and Aaron had been born brother and sister.

  And Aaron had three weeks, to prove to her—to everyone—that he wasn’t guilty of the charge against him.

  Three weeks.

  Twenty-one days.

  Which wasn’t very long at all.

  Chapter Eight

  When Uley knocked on the upstairs door at Frank Emerson’s Pacific Hotel and Elizabeth Calderwood opened it, Uley never once stopped to think that Elizabeth might consider it odd that she didn’t sweep off her woven cap and extend her a hearty greeting. Her mind had traveled well past such things. Her heart was clattering inside her rib cage the way a smithy’s hammer clangs against iron.

  “I’ve come to see Aaron. Is he here?”

  “Yes, of course.” Elizabeth frowned. “He’s composing a letter at the moment. Who should I say is—?”

  “I’m Uley. Uley Kirkland.” As an afterthought, Uley stuck one hand out to Aaron’s sister. “Nice to meet you, ma’am. Glad to have you in Tin Cup.”

  Elizabeth cast one more glance her way. “Come in, please. I’l
l summon my brother.”

  Uley followed Elizabeth past a sturdy bed built entirely of lodgepole logs and draped with a yellow quilt. Elizabeth opened the heavy pine door leading to the adjoining room and stepped inside. There sat Aaron, perched on a stool and laboring at a desk that must have been of his own making—two barrels stood on end, with a wooden plank stretching between them. He was working laboriously at his letter, dipping his pen into the inkwell, then letting it remain there while he stared at the same blue stationery Uley had once gone to fetch from the Grand Central. His head slumped toward the page, his fingers jutting up through his hair.

  As Uley watched from behind Elizabeth, the right words seemed to come all in a bunch. Aaron grabbed the pen from the well and began scratching them out, writing several sentences before he sank the pen back into the well and stuck his fingers back into his clove-coloured hair to begin the process again.

  “Some young man’s here to see you, brother,” Elizabeth told him.

  He raised his head. “Don’t know who’d want to see me.”

  “Uley Kirkland.”

  “Uley?” His neck straightened, and he rose from the stool. The pen and well wobbled dangerously in his haste, but not enough to splatter the desktop. “She— He— Where?”

  “Here, Aaron.” Uley stepped out from behind Elizabeth and moved toward him. “I just wanted to…I don’t know…thought perhaps…” She wasn’t at liberty to speak to him frankly while Elizabeth was there with them. A sudden thought saved her. “Perhaps you wanted me to post that letter when the supply wagon goes out tomorrow at noon.”

  “This time I am capable of posting my own letter,” he said, moving forward and casting his eyes down at her. “I am not locked in the jailhouse anymore.”

  “Thank goodness.”

  “You think that’s appropriate? That Murphy let me have time like this? To find Hayes?”

  “Maybe. Yes. I’m wondering, thinking I shouldn’t have been the one to stop all of it that night. I don’t know.” She had a great many things to say, but now that she was here she didn’t know how to say them.