Blessing Read online

  I don’t know.

  I don’t know.

  Did he look at other women, say the same words to them, touch their hair?

  “Hey,” Sam whispered. He’d noticed that her face had blanched to the same hue as cold ashes. “You okay?”

  She didn’t answer him.

  Kincaid turned to the spectators. “There you have it, my fellow citizens of Tin Cup. I have researched heavily and have brought forth a second testimony attesting to the goodness of the defendant, Aaron Talephas Brown. We did not need mountain man Dawson Hayes. We’ve kept Miss Mabel Cornelius here as a surprise witness all along.” He turned toward the jury and gestured grandly at them. “I suggest we allow the jury to come to its decision now, and put this innocent man out of his misery. I suggest you find the defendant, Aaron Talephas Brown, blameless of all charges brought against him.”

  It wasn’t until Aaron scanned the far wall and found Uley again that he knew he had to take action against his own attorney. Ever since Kincaid had bellowed out Mabel’s name, Aaron had figured this event for the circus it had proved to be. Except for one night he had poked his head into Charles Ongewach’s looking for Lesser Levy, he had never laid eyes on Wishbone Mabel Cornelius, much less consorted with her. The only person in this valley he’d poured his thoughts out to was Uley Kirkland.

  And, truth be told, he’d gone and given her his love, too.

  Never mind that Kincaid’s shenanigans grated against everything Aaron believed in. Never mind that Kincaid and Beth and What’s-Her-Name Mabel were coming close to clearing him. All he could see in his mind’s eye was the white-as-china, full-of-pain face of Uley Julia Kirkland as she sat wordlessly in her chair, losing all her hope, all her faith, in him. And he wasn’t gonna let that happen, not even to save his life.

  He leapt from the chair so fast he knocked it over.

  “No!” he hollered. “I can’t have it, Kincaid. No.”

  As he summoned up the words he knew he had to say, he supposed he was about to do the right thing wrong again. He’d die being honest like this. But just now, that honesty meant everything to him. “Mabel’s lying. I never told that gal anything.”

  Mabel sprang from her seat, too, just the way she and Kincaid rehearsed it. “Don’t say that. How can you, Aaron?”

  “I don’t know who has paid you, ma’am,” he said, waggling a finger at her. “I certainly appreciate the effort you’re makin’, but I won’t be acceptin’ my freedom this way.”

  “Nobody’s payin’ me anything!” she screeched. “Now git back down in that chair and let this jury acquit you.”

  “Mr. Brown.” Kincaid scowled at him. “This is highly irregular.”

  “You are highly irregular,” Aaron said. “I will not have this. Not this way.” He would not let Uley think he’d spent even the shortest amount of time with Wishbone Mabel. For days, all he’d wanted was to tell Uley every feeling his heart encompassed for her. He’d rather die knowing he’d left her with that knowledge than live knowing she thought he’d betrayed her.

  Judge Murphy rose from the bench, flapping his black-sleeved robe so that he resembled a cave bat. “Do you deny this, then? Do you call your sister a liar? Is this a diversion Mrs. Calderwood and Mr. Kincaid have constructed to save you from an almost certain fate?”

  He fumbled for words. “Yes…but, no…. I…” How was he going to get himself out of this one? What was he going to have to sacrifice so that Uley’s secret could remain intact?

  For one instant…one long breath that seemed to hold the length of his life in it…he allowed himself to gaze at the back wall, where he knew she was sitting. “I will be honest,” he said. “Call me to the stand, and I will tell you some of it—”

  He saw Uley grip the arm of her chair like she’d grip a heavy pump handle. The look they exchanged would have been obvious to everybody…if everybody had known…if anybody had known the intensity of the kiss they’d shared, of the future they’d begun to long for.

  You’ll be satisfied, he tried to tell her with his eyes after he came forward. Don’t run from this. This is so you’ll trust me.

  John Kincaid concealed his face in his hands, knowing full well he’d been defeated. “Okay,” he said quietly. “If you insist, we’ll get on with this.”

  “No.” Murphy held up one hand to halt the defense attorney. “I’ll do the questioning from here on out.”

  Kincaid acquiesced. “He’s your witness, Your Honor.”

  Murphy came down from the bench and positioned himself to the front and to the right of Aaron. “Now, Mr. Brown. Suppose you tell us what’s going on here.”

  Aaron found one specific pine plank to stare at, focusing on a knot the size and shape of a black bear’s eye. “I have come to care for someone in this valley very much. For one…woman.”

  Uley felt as if a gigantic hand were clutching at her throat.

  “My sister did not lie under oath, Judge Murphy.”

  “Where did the lying begin, Mr. Brown?”

  Aaron gave a long sweeping gesture in the direction of Wishbone Mabel. “Mabel. Kincaid. I figure I know what you’re trying to do. But I won’t let you do it. I have to tell the court. Mabel is not the woman of my affections. She is not the one with whom I share stories the likes of these. If I was a lesser man, or perhaps more of a man, I’d let the jury decide my fate after hearing Mabel’s story. But I will not let this continue in this courtroom. I would not have her hear Mabel’s testimony and think it happened Mabel’s way.”

  “Who is it you care for, Mr. Brown?” Murphy asked. He was completely confused, but he figured he’d at least have somebody else to call to the stand.

  It’s me, Uley wanted to sing out. No matter what, it really is me.

  Aaron shook his head. “I can’t tell you that.”

  “You can’t tell me? Mr. Brown, surely you realize your life hangs in the balance here.”

  “Yes,” Aaron said. “I realize that. Even so, I won’t divulge it.”

  “I don’t understand, Brown,” Murphy said, as Elizabeth, in the fifth row, began to weep openly. “I don’t see why this is so all-fired important.”

  Aaron’s eyes journeyed to Uley’s. He could see even from this distance, that her insides were being wrenched. He figured he knew everything she felt inside. “Ain’t no sense in sayin’ it out loud, Judge Murphy,” he said. “Her deposition wouldn’t clear me. Dawson Hayes is the only eyewitness to the events that occurred along the Cache la Poudre River. The woman I’m talkin’ about…she knows who she is. I won’t tell you her name. I made her an important promise once. I won’t betray that promise now.”

  Murphy shrugged. “Is that all you’ve got to say for yourself?”

  “It is, Judge Murphy.”

  Murphy paced across the front of the room once…twice…three times. Aaron figured he couldn’t quite decide what to do. At last he clasped his hands behind his back and cleared his throat. The sound had the same resonance as an elk’s mating call. He faced the Pitkin miners. “Distinguished members of the jury,” he began in a blustering tone. “You have heard the testimony in this case. The outcome of this trial is in your hands. At this time, we will clear the town hall. You will remain locked in here until you reach a decision. We’ll all be waiting on your verdict outside. Somebody just bang on the window and we’ll come back in.”

  His expression somber, Murphy motioned for the spectators in the front row to follow him. One by one, the entire assembly filed outside and into the glare to wait. The group that had once been apt to murmur now remained hushed. The men milled about on the steps, eyes down-turned, occasionally thwacking a back or shaking a hand. Then the whispered questions began.

  “What do you suppose’ll happen in there?”

  “What do you wonder they’re thinking inside?”

  “Figure it’ll take all day?”

  Even if it did, none of them would think of leaving.

  Aaron and Uley met once, finding themselves standing f
ace-to-face in the hushed crowd. Now, more than ever, Aaron knew he must be careful how he reacted to her in front of these miners. His impassioned speech in that courtroom might very well still give her away.

  Their eyes locked.

  Their hearts touched.

  They cried out to one another, silently, in pain and in hope.

  I’ll always trust you now, she longed to say. I’ll always know you did right.

  I knew you were afraid, he longed to say. I don’t want you to question what we’ve shared.

  At precisely one o’clock p.m., one of the Pitkin miners came to the rippled window and tapped on it with his fingers.

  “They’re ready for us,” Charlie Hastings shouted.

  “Verdict’s in,” Frenchy Perrault announced.

  Judge Murphy pulled an iron key from his pocket, rotated it once in the lock, threw open the door and beckoned to everybody to find a place within.

  The men filed silently to their places.

  Three of them drew out a chair so Elizabeth could sit with her brother at the front table.

  Uley stood beside Sam, gripping her father’s arm. No matter what the jury’s decision was, she could express no emotion at all. She dared not swoon in defeat or cry out in relief. Instead, she stood as still as a fence post, the room tottering unsteadily around her, as the fellow who’d tapped upon the glass came forward carrying a small card.

  “Gentlemen—” he swallowed once, and then his eyes lit upon Elizabeth Calderwood “—and the lady. Jury’s done votin’ and arguin’. We’re ready to tell you what we’ve decided. We, the jury, do hereby say…”

  Tension.

  A whole room full of it.

  “…that because this lawyer—” here he pointed to John Kincaid “—could never come up with any eyewitnesses to attest to the defendant’s stories, and that lawyer—” here he pointed at Seth Wood “—came up with a witness who saw the defendant with the gun actually in his hand…”

  The shuddering and rumbling in Uley’s ears might well have belonged to all hundred men.

  “…we find the defendant, Aaron Talephas Brown…”

  Our Father, she prayed. Don’t let them do this. Please don’t let them do this.

  “…guilty of the charges…”

  Harris Olney didn’t waste any time. He took a set of handcuffs from his belt. They snapped around Aaron’s wrists with a resounding clangor.

  The miner’s words came to Uley’s ears in disjointed fragments that numbed Uley even before she fully comprehended them.

  “…to be hanged at nine o’clock in the morning from the cottonwood tree by Willow Creek…”

  Judge Murphy encircled Elizabeth with his arms and held her there while she wept, crying, “No…no…no…”

  “…around the neck until dead…”

  The editor of the Tin Cup Banner ran past them all and down the outside steps. In three hours, the newspaper would have an extra edition proclaiming the event of a hanging at precisely nine the next morning.

  Kincaid exited next, shaking his head. He’d almost done it. He’d almost saved his client. If only the fool hadn’t found the need to be so altogether honest. If anybody asked him, he’d tell them he’d prefer a cheatin’ man to an honest one any day. Cheatin’ men you could predict and place a winnin’ bet on every time. Honest ones weren’t so easy to figure out.

  Marshal Harris Olney took hold of Aaron’s handcuffs and prodded him toward the door. Aaron passed Uley, meeting her gaze, then dropping it.

  “It’s gonna be nice not havin’ to worry about you anymore,” Harris said.

  Aaron hung back, making Olney work for every step they took together. “You’re gonna worry about me your whole life. You’re gonna wake up every mornin’ with my blood on your hands.”

  Harris poked him along with the butt of his firearm. “That’s fine by me. I’ve seen you come after me one too many times. Don’t figure you’ll be coming after me from your grave.”

  Late-May dandelions grew in sprigs around Tin Cup’s business establishments, spiking open like clusters of tiny suns. Magpies flew past, their wings flickering white, their blackness shining jewel-blue as they searched for roosting spots in the willows. As Uley hiked toward the jailhouse for the first time in three weeks, the late-afternoon sun reflected against the creek, dull and golden.

  Strange, she thought, how things of the soil and sky can proceed on such a day as this.

  She opened the jailhouse door. Harris Olney was reclining in his chair, his boot heels atop his desk, picking his teeth. When he saw her, he swung his feet to the floor. “Don’t tell me you’re back again. You gonna stay immersed in this episode ’til it’s all over, ain’t you?”

  “I need to see him.”

  “Sure beats me why. Beats me why you ever got involved in this in the first place.”

  “Don’t show me the way back. I know where he is.”

  She walked to the back room and stood on the threshold for a long moment, waiting, thinking of his words on the stand. I have come to care for someone in this valley very much. For one…woman.

  He stood when he saw her. “Uley,” he whispered.

  “Aaron.”

  He came forward, clutching the bars with both hands in a gesture of need very different from the frustrated one he’d made the first time she came to visit. He stared down at her. “My, but you’re a sight for sore eyes.”

  “I’m glad.” She struggled to find words. None came close to describing the feelings or the predicament they shared. “You’re good for my eyes, too.”

  He hesitated, searching for the words. “Funny how we’re back at this place again, peering at each other with bars between us. Seems like it’s the same as it was three weeks ago.”

  No, it isn’t, Uley wanted to say. Because I love you now. We can’t go back three weeks.

  “Uley.”

  “I’ve got to tell you I’m sorry,” she said, tears springing to her eyes, “for everything I did that got you here.”

  “No need to be sorry,” he said. “You did what your heart told you was right.”

  But not anymore. My heart’s not telling me it’s right anymore.

  “It’s more than that, too. I’m sorry for all the doubts I had in my mind. I’m sorry for not trusting you. Today. When Mabel took the stand.”

  “Mabel did a good job up there. Any girl would have believed her, hearing how she talked.”

  “If you hadn’t been trying to protect me, perhaps you would have let her finish it,” she said.

  “Perhaps. But perhaps not.” He didn’t want her to feel responsible for the choice he’d made. She meant everything to him.

  He gripped one of her hands in his, pulling it forward, turning it so that he could examine the web of lines running across her palm. He traced the longest, deepest crease with one rough finger.

  She closed her eyes against his touch.

  “You know my words were true up there, don’t you? You know you’re the one for me, Uley. The only one.”

  “It’s what I’ve been hoping for, for the longest time,” she whispered. “It’s what I’ve been wishing for.” She raised her palm, pressing it against the grainy stubble of his sprouting beard. She tightened her fingers against his jaw, knowing this might be the last time she ever touched him.

  Her tears came now, finally spilling out of her eyes, tracking down her cheeks in rivulets. “I’m the one who did this in the first place, Aaron. If I hadn’t been the one to stop you.”

  “You mustn’t question the outcome of this, little one. It won’t change anything.”

  “I wish,” she said, very quietly, “that you could hold me.”

  His two hands gathered her own and tugged her gently toward the steel bars. “Almost,” he said. “I can almost do it.”

  “Aaron…”

  As he wrapped his arms about her as best he could, she pressed her hands against his cheeks, holding his face there, a breath away, a world away, grieving for him.
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br />   He pushed her slightly away then, searching her face, drinking in the color of her eyes one last long time, eyes the clear, green hue of the moss that grew on the rocks way above the timberline. “I’ll go to my grave tomorrow thinking about how you let me touch your hair. I know a man’s supposed to have his eyes on the Lord at times like this.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “I figure the Lord won’t mind me thinking about you just as I go. It’ll be what gets me through, Uley. I want you to know that.”

  His words touched her heart in a strange, weightless way even as they filled her with sorrow.

  “Don’t say it.”

  “I have to say it. Anything I don’t say now doesn’t get said at all.” He took her face in his hands. They stood together for long moments in just that way, hands to skin, eyes to eyes, man to woman.

  A ruckus arose in the street outside the cell window.

  Aaron didn’t take his gaze from her face. “That’ll be Aunt Kate Fischer and the others. She promised to bring me a last meal tonight. Roast beef and potatoes. She knows it’s my favorite. She had to change her whole menu because of it.”

  “I should go. You won’t be needing me with all those people in here, and a roast beef dinner, too.”

  He touched one finger to her chin. “I’ll always be needing you, Uley. You remember that. Even when I’m with the angels up in heaven, I’ll be wishing one of them was you.”

  She closed her eyes against the tears.

  He had in mind to kiss her one last time. He had in mind to gather her close to him and take her mouth awkwardly with his own. But even as he thought it, he decided it wouldn’t be the thing to do. He’d kissed her once…amid the lodgepoles…with his fingers and the breeze tangling through her hair. It was the way he wanted always to know her, as the woman pliant beside him, without these confounded bars shoving into their ribs. The memory of such a kiss would carry him on to eternity. It couldn’t be duplicated now.

  “Know what you’ve given me, Uley,” he whispered. And with that his last dinner clattered in through the door.