Blessing Page 20

  Chapter Fourteen

  Nobody in Tin Cup would donate a horse for the hanging. As the sun rose over the eastern mountains and splashed the valley with a palette of vibrant yellow, Harris Olney was still trying to round up a suitable animal. He sure wasn’t gonna use his horse for a hanging.

  When he’d contacted Sam and Uley Kirkland last night, Sam had told Harris in no uncertain terms that he didn’t want their horses utilized for such an event. Jason Farley’s horses were gone, all rounded up and ridden down the canyon to Gunnison to sell at auction. So the marshal settled for a mule donated by Carl Hord, just another old animal that had been brought in to work the mines, one that had probably walked a thousand miles if it had walked one of them. Old Croppy.

  When the crowd started gathering beneath the ancient cottonwood, the sun had already ascended a third of the way, casting a brilliance down upon the primal colors of nature, blue sky, green willow, brown loam. The mule stood at the ready, a dusty brown ear flopping down over one eye, as serene as the donkey that had transported Mary and Joseph on their ardent, ancient journey to Bethlehem.

  Uley, who’d been awake since long before five, knew she wouldn’t see Aaron until Olney led him out of the jailhouse. The huge roast-beef dinner had marked Aaron’s last onslaught of visitors. Aware that—at best—he held on to human sentiment in the valley by a slender thread, Olney had ousted Aaron’s last callers from the jailhouse at eight p.m. He hadn’t let anyone stay with Aaron into the night.

  Elizabeth Calderwood waited now with all the others, Aunt Kate Fischer holding her hand and clutching a damp cloth to dab across her forehead should the woman swoon as her brother met his demise. The hemp rope dangled from the lowest, strongest limb of the tree, tied by the expert hand of Gilbert P. Hughes, the town’s sometime undertaker. Hughes had worked long into the evening yesterday. He’d dug the seven-foot hole right beside poor Bob Wester up on Boot Hill.

  At 8:45, Aaron vacated his cell. He waited, hat in hand, for the marshal to lead him outside. By 8:47, virtually everybody in town was waiting beneath the tree. The Pitkin miners were gathered together in a group, bearing the burden of their decision of justice. Five or six men had ridden up from Gunnison during the night to witness the event for the state of Colorado. Even as late as 8:50, the assembly remained quiet, the onlookers almost paralyzed by the shock of the events of past days. They’d come to a troubled, uneasy respect for this outlaw, one who’d come into their midst quietly with his sights, some said, set on righteousness. One who had fallen victim to a justice system more powerful than any man.

  Despite the jury decision, today wasn’t a moment of which they’d all be particularly proud. Though nobody would admit it out loud, the story of Olney’s foul deeds had seriously eroded the faith some citizens placed in their marshal.

  Just suppose Olney had been on the wrong side of the law and killed a man, Judge Murphy thought as he awaited the hour of execution.

  Just suppose Olney was using his polished star to hide from what he’d done.

  Just suppose they were hanging an innocent man.

  Just suppose.

  At 8:55 a.m., Olney led Aaron Talephas Brown from the jailhouse and into the crowd. He wore his best black suit, the one Uley’d seen when she rummaged through his things in search of writing utensils. She figured he’d decided to be buried in that suit after all.

  As if he could already feel the taut rope around his neck, he hadn’t fastened the top button of his shirt. The fine white linen fell open at the hollow of his neck, and the horn on his bolo tie hung at half-mast. At her first sight of him, Uley bolted forward, struggling toward him in the crowd, pushing her way past Charlie Hastings and Lesser Levy and Lester McClain.

  She knew the moment his eyes found her in the mass of men. She felt his gaze upon her the way she felt the sun upon her face, warming and all-encompassing, life-giving, necessary.

  She spoke no words to those she shoved past. She only moved closer and closer, knowing he needed to know she was there.

  And need her he did, he thought as he saw her coming forth from the throng.

  Life, he thought. Not much of it left. And he prayed, Father, make me ready for this. Adrenaline pulsed through his head. His arms felt as limp as Aunt Kate’s apron strings. Please comfort me, Lord. I can’t do this on my own.

  Leaving Aaron standing before them all, Harris walked to Old Croppy and untethered the animal. He brought the mule forth and prodded Aaron with his gun butt in an effort to get him to climb aboard.

  Aaron couldn’t mount the animal because of his handcuffs. Olney lifted him from the ground and held him steady while he swung one suited leg over the velvet-dark line marking Old Croppy’s spine.

  As Olney gave the command and Hughes shimmied up the tree to lower the rope, Aaron closed his eyes, remembering last night, his long hours of contemplation in the cell. For the past half year, he’d been ruled by suspicion and outrage. This, he supposed, would be the ultimate lesson. Even as he prayed, begging God to be near, he didn’t understand why the Father hadn’t brought Dawson Hayes to exonerate him. He had wrestled with this long into the night, unable to grasp its meaning until, near dawn, he had made a quiet peace. It was out of his hands. Olney would find his just deserts in the world below, where the very air men breathed seared hotter than fire. His own anger had been spent in the stalking and defending and accusing. He had nothing left now except a silent gratitude for the richness of this past month…the stolen evening jaunt with Uley…the chase in the willows…the kiss…yes, even the first night, when she’d sprung on him and sent him to the dirt.

  He’d spent hours thinking of Uley last night…as the summer night turned deep and cold…as the morning finally came fading into the sky with a color like peach ice cream.

  He felt the bite of the noose for the first time as Olney worked it over his head, then settled it against the pliant skin where a closed shirt and a knotted tie should rest. He swallowed once…twice…his Adam’s apple wavering up, then down, at the pressure of the rope.

  He felt as if he were strangling already.

  Hughes pulled the rope up tighter, adjusting it to the length that, Aaron knew, would properly leave him suspended, his body stretched full-length in the air, his feet dangling inches from the earth where Old Croppy now stood.

  As if in response to the choking obstruction of the rope, Aaron opened his eyes and viewed the town around him, the makeshift, dilapidated buildings, the flaring sun, the dismal faces, the mountains that looked as if they truly had been chiseled out by God’s hand. In those few moments, he saw life…life at its worst…life at its best. Everything around him seemed more pronounced, perfect, from the nutty smell of the rope that encircled his windpipe to the perfect shadowed Vs etched deeply in the cottonwood’s bark.

  Olney stepped back and slapped his hat against his knee. “Your time’s come. You want anybody to offer up a prayer for your soul?”

  “Yes.” He leveled his eyes on his enemy. “I do.”

  “Now, where’s that preacher? Talking big about staying in town, running church services here, when all he’s needed for is to offer last words over this man’s embittered life?”

  Pastor Benjamin Creede stepped forward, brandishing his Bible.” I have come to do my duty before Christ.”

  Aaron mustered a smile. “Thank you, Pastor.”

  “Mr. Brown, do you know where you are going to spend eternity?”

  He nodded.

  Benjamin Creede’s eyebrows shot up. “You do?”

  “With Jesus Christ, my Lord.”

  A murmur surged through the crowd.

  “Guess I don’t have as much to talk to you about as I thought I did.”

  “They can bury me on Boot Hill if they want.” The boldness in Aaron’s voice made pain heave in Uley’s bosom. Oh, Father. Why this? “I have made my peace.”

  “Very well, then. Let us bow our heads.”

  All over the crowd, hats came off in a show of respect for
eternity. Stetsons. Wool caps. Bowlers. Even a beret or two. Every hat in the crowd came off, except one. Uley’s.

  It was everything she could do not to remove her cap and let her hair fall down once more for him. She stood before him, her back to the rest of the throng, tears of anguish coursing down her cheeks.

  Don’t you do this. Don’t you do this, she berated herself. It wouldn’t do for a fellow to cry.

  “Heavenly Father, in the name of Your son, Jesus,” Creede bellowed. “we ask that You receive the soul of this child unto Yourself. That You would comfort him and take him quickly, that You would use this desperate moment to promote Your own goodness in the world, that You would bring all criminals to justice and protect all men who are innocent, that You would be among us and guard our hearts against any joy that we are about to see that would entertain us or bring us harm, that we would accept it as Your perfect justice, that You would ensure that Aaron Brown’s spirit is, this day, in heaven with You—”

  “Amen.” Olney clattered the reins on Old Croppy. “Amen, already. Creede, that’s about the longest prayer I’ve heard anyone pray and we don’t have time for it.”

  “I beg your pardon.” Benjamin Creede looked none too pleased at being interrupted. “Aaron Brown has time for it.”

  “Let’s get this taken care of so we can go back to work in the mines. No sense these men losing valuable earnings just to listen to your prattle.” Olney signaled them by raising his bowler into the air. Hats went back on.

  When Olney moved toward Aaron, Aaron sat straight as an arrow. “I want my hat on.”

  “That’s an easy enough request. Here. Let me put it on your head.”

  Aaron kept a tight grip on his hat band. “I don’t want you to touch me. I want Uley Kirkland to put my hat on.”

  Olney backed off. “Okay. Uley it is. Uley! Come on up here and put this Stetson on this man’s head.”

  “Me?” Her heart started pounding like a smithy’s anvil. “He wants me to do it?”

  “Git on up here, Uley,” the marshal bellowed. “Time’s awastin’. It’s already 9:04. This scoundrel should have been dead and gone three minutes ago.”

  Timidly Uley made her way the rest of the distance to Old Croppy. Aaron peered down at her with eyes like blue water. He released his hat into her hands.

  She couldn’t reach to place it on his head.

  He couldn’t bend his neck to help her.

  “Marshal.” She cast teary eyes in Olney’s direction. “I can’t get to him.”

  “We’ve got him almost all the way strung up. I’m not gonna take him halfway down now.”

  “Lift me up, then,” she suggested. “I can sit behind him and get it on. Croppy’s carried loads at least the weight of two of us together.”

  “Wouldn’t do that way.” Olney wasn’t about to give either of them an opportunity to cut the rope and ride off.

  “It’s a man’s last request,” Uley said. “You can’t very well deny it.”

  Olney mumbled something unintelligible and signaled to Gilbert Hughes. “Lengthen that rope fer a minute, would you? We’ve got a man who wants to put his hat on down here.”

  Hughes took a long moment to undo the knot, tugging it over and through itself until it fell free of the branch. “There, Marshal.”

  “Okay,” Olney growled as he grabbed hold of Old Croppy’s bridle. “You can bend your head down now. Be quick about this. Come on.”

  Aaron pitched slightly forward, his shock of black hair falling straight over his brows. Uley’d have given anything if she could have raised one hand and run it along the freshly shaven skin of his cheek. She laid the hand that ached to touch him one last time on his knee instead.

  He’d splashed on enough bay rum this morning to make a mule skinner sit up and take notice.

  “Thank you, Julia Kirkland,” he whispered. “Thank you for everything.”

  This nearness was all he’d wanted. In his heightened state, he longed to catch the fragrance of her one more time, the woman smell, the one that blended lye and flowers and female.

  She took the Stetson in two hands and settled it upon his head, letting her fingers brush his coffee-black hair. It was already warm from the intense sunlight pouring down upon them.

  “There you go,” she whispered.

  Between them, an eternity passed as, still, he leaned forward.

  “The angels in heaven won’t be as beautiful as you,” he whispered. “You must live, and live well, for the both of us.”

  “I will.”

  “God bless you,” he said, “for all that you’ve done for me.”

  “Goodbye.” Her eyes dry with shock. “God go with you.” She backed away from him then, keeping her face steady on him, wanting her love to be the last thing he saw when he departed this life.

  Inside, her heart broke.

  Olney adjusted the noose over Aaron’s head, this time making it big enough around to fit over Aaron’s Stetson. He cinched it tight. Then he called out, “Hughes!”

  Once more Gilbert Hughes fastened the hemp to the branch, working it over and under and through, testing it to make certain the loop would hold a man’s weight, making ready to counter-balance with his own. He tested it once more, then signaled down from where he sat in the tree. “All’s ready, Marshal.”

  “Very well.” Olney glanced about one more time, his eyes coming to rest on Beth, who was now sobbing openly, Kate Fischer supporting her with one burly black arm.

  “We’ll go on with it.” He raised his bowler in one hand, making ready to give the signal.

  Olney nodded up to Gilbert Hughes.

  Hughes nodded down to Olney.

  The crowd hushed.

  Beth sobbed.

  Uley held her breath, her eyes locked on Aaron’s, her lips moving in a wordless prayer.

  Suddenly, from up on Alpine Pass, came a cloud of dust and a thunderburst of hooves.

  “What on earth?” Olney hollered.

  “Who’s that?” Gilbert Hughes shouted.

  Olney recognized the rider first. His eyes took on the same steely hardness as lead bullets. He signaled for the hanging to commence. But Gilbert Hughes was too busy watching the approaching stranger. He didn’t see Olney’s signal.

  The fellow coming in wore a white beard as full and long as Santa’s and had hair that encircled his head like a tangled mane. Around his neck he wore a string of grizzly-bear claws. “Halloooo!” He saluted the miners, the long buckskin fringe along his sleeve waving like a flag.

  Elizabeth’s eyes went as big around as bucket lids.

  “What’s goin’ on, fellers?” The man was huge. His massive round nose reminded Uley of a bull moose. “Figured I’d best get over here. Figured I might miss somethin’ important.” At that precise moment, the huge man spied Aaron atop Old Croppy, the rope firmly adjusted around his neck. “What on earth you doin’ up there, boy?”

  Beth stepped away from Aunt Kate. “Dawson,” she said, in a voice so soft that not many around could hear her. “Dawson Hayes.”

  “Beth!” Dawson called, his eyes twinkling like stars. He swung his buckskin-clad leg over the saddle and hopped off his horse. Even though he dropped the reins, the animal stood where he’d dismounted. “Heard you were in these parts.”

  The pair stood staring at each other in amazement for a moment. Finally Hayes’s massive arms wrapped around Elizabeth’s tiny shoulders and they rocked each other back and forth. As the fellow greeted Beth, his eyes squinted shut in rapture, the skin around them a fretwork of lines radiating to his temples like sun rays in a child’s drawing. “Don’t it just beat all,” he said, still swaying her to and fro. “Don’t it just beat all….”

  “You got Aaron’s letter,” she said, weeping. “You got it and you came.”

  “Aaron sent me a letter?”

  Beth moved out of his grasp and stepped back, just staring at the mountain man for a long moment. “He did. Three weeks ago.”

  Dawson Hayes pul
led a single crumpled sheet of paper from his pocket and unfolded it. “I got a letter, all right. Delivered to me out in the wilderness. But it didn’t have Aaron’s name signed to it.”

  “It didn’t?”

  “Nope. See here.” He held it up for Elizabeth to see, then folded it up again, holding it in a tiny square until he fished a pair of round, wire-framed eyeglasses out of a buckskin pouch and slid them onto his nose. He opened the letter again, reading it aloud so everyone who gathered close could hear the words.

  Dear Dawson Hayes

  Here—blotch—is sum money. No need to come to Tin Cup. We—blotch—do not need you.

  Hayes glanced up at all of them. “Had a crisp new five-dollar bill inside. I decided I’d better come out here to find out why somebody figured they didn’t need me for somethin’.”

  Judge Murphy angrily shoved his way through the men. “Let me see that letter.”

  Hayes handed it over. “I just couldn’t figure who’d have written such a thing. The handwritin’ ain’t familiar.”

  “It is to me,” Beth said, almost in a whisper.

  Murphy read the letter over once, his brow furrowed with consternation. “Where’s the five-dollar bill?”

  “I spent it fast. I bought me so much chewin’ tobacco, I didn’t know what to do with it all. I had to trade half of it away to the Utes.”

  “That bill could have been used as evidence, Hayes.”

  Beth stood, still staring at the blotched letter, her face empty of all color. “Mrs. Calderwood,” Murphy said in genuine concern. “Would you like to sit inside? Perhaps the sun is too much.”

  Then, surprisingly, she smiled. “We don’t need the five-dollar bill, Judge Murphy. I know who wrote that letter.”

  “You know who might have done this? You know who might have wanted to stop Mr. Hayes from testifying on your brother’s behalf?”

  “Yes.” She pulled open the strings of her reticule and began to rummage through its meager contents. When she found what she wanted, she pulled it out triumphantly. “I never did want to leave this in the safe down at the Pacific Hotel. I was too afraid somebody would try to sneak away with the bail money.”