Rocky Mountain Oasis (36 page)

Lee rolled his eyes in exasperation. “I have told you a thousand times that I don’t need some man who lived two thousand years ago to help me with anything. I have done very well for myself. Look at all we have.” He gestured with his sandwich in the general direction of their store.

“Yes, and look where it has taken you.” She gestured around the jail.

He eyed her. “I have been thinking about that.” He lowered his voice even though Gaffney couldn’t understand Chinese. “Listen, you could help us get out of here. Remember that little gun I keep under the counter at the store?”

Tears misted Jenny’s eyes, and she shook her head.

He went on. “You could bring it to me…smuggle it in under some food or something, and then we could all get out of here. You and I could go back to China and see our families again. What do you say?”

The tears spilled down Jenny’s cheeks. “No, Lee. I will not help you out of this one. Too many times I have turned my back on your evil, and I won’t do it again. You had a man
killed!
And for what? What did you get for this job? A little money? How long will it last you? Or have you spent it already? This life is but a vapor, Lee.” She snapped her fingers. “We’re here for a moment and then gone tomorrow. The day is coming when you will have to stand before your Maker and give an account for your life. What are you going to say?”

She swiped angrily at the tears on her cheeks. “I have prayed, Lee. Prayed that you will get out of here. But I must be honest with you. I don’t think that is going to happen—and I know what happens to murderers. Especially Chinese murderers.” Her face crumpled. “Hard as life has been with you, I hate the thought of having to live without you.”

He averted his eyes and folded his hands. Shrugging, he looked back at her. “Just my pipe then?”

Her heart sank. He hadn’t heard a word she’d said. She backed toward the door, her eyes never leaving his face. “I love you, Lee. Even now, after all you have put me through, I still love you. But I will not help you escape. Not physically, and not mentally. I want you to be able to think clearly about all I have ever told you about Jesus and His love.”

She gulped back her tears, wondering if this might not be the last chance she would get to talk with him. What else could she say? “Good-bye, Lee.” She swung around and moved toward the door.

“Jenny!” he called out to her.

She stopped, turning to face him.

“I will think about what you’ve said.”

Thankfulness washed over her, and she nodded. “That is all I can ask.” With that she made a hasty exit and headed home. There she threw herself across the bed and sobbed herself into an exhausted sleep.

The long night passed in nightmarish fashion for Sky. He had caught up with Pa on the trail to town, but they had found no clues to Brooke’s whereabouts. Just before darkness descended in full force, they found the place where she had apparently been knocked from her horse by an overhead branch, but she had been riding away from town, not toward it. At the sight of the dark stain of blood on the patch of pine needles where Brooke had fallen, Sky felt the blood drain from his face. He hated being so helpless in the face of her danger.

Whipping around, he started for his horse, ready to head toward town and keep searching, but Pa laid a restraining hand on his arm. “It won’t do any good to keep looking in the dark, Son.”

Sky wanted to keep on searching all night until he found her, but knew even without the insistence of his father, that traipsing around in the dark would not only end in failure but might destroy any tracks that could lead them to her in the morning. He sighed in resignation, hating the fact that he could do nothing.

He spent a restless night, pacing back and forth in their little cabin, and praying as best he could, hoping above all hope that they would find her alive someplace, first thing in the morning—that nothing terrible would happen to her between now and then.

Jason lay in his usual position on the boarding-house bed, hands clasped behind his head. He had gotten little sleep because of the thoughts that plagued his mind. Yesterday morning, when he and Sky talked, he had felt a measure of their old camaraderie return. It had felt good. He didn’t want to walk away from that friendship again, but he knew there was a more important decision he needed to make.

The first verses of Psalm 23 kept coming to mind: The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want, He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul; He leads me in paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.

Jason had once walked by those still waters. He knew what it was like to have peace in his life, and for the last several years he had had no peace.

He thought back over the time he had lived in Pierce City. He had come here bent on revenge, seeking to drown his bitterness in the bottom of a bottle. But God had thwarted his plans at every turn.

There had been no opportunity for him to carry out his vendetta against Lee Chang. He had sought every opening to exact his revenge, but there’d never been a time when he felt he could do so without getting caught, so he had never followed through on his many murderous desires.

As for his drinking, what had that ever gotten him? It certainly hadn’t removed his bitterness. If anything, it had sharpened it, making it more intense. And it was often, when he was in the throes of a hangover, that Scriptures he’d committed to memory as a boy would come back to haunt him.

When he had sought to bring a young woman into his home for his own selfish indulgence, God had stepped in then, as well, sending Sky to intervene on her behalf and ultimately forcing Jason to look clearly at his own life and see it for what it was. Empty and dry.

Wherever he turned, peace and pleasure eluded him. Even now, when Lee Chang, the man he had hated for so long, would probably hang for murder, he didn’t feel the happiness he’d imagined, nor the peace he’d hoped for.

He suddenly came face to face with the truth. He longed for the peace he had once known. He yearned to be led by still waters, to feel the cool refreshing richness that comes only when one’s life is right with God. He wanted God to restore his soul.

He had made a step in the right direction when he’d decided that revenge was a poor choice and that he would let the Lord decide what happened to Chang, but he knew he needed to do more than that. He needed to surrender his soul to Jesus.

“Oh Lord, I have fought You for so long. I know You’ve been here convicting me, trying to show me how much harm I was doing to myself, because I have never felt right about the things I was doing. I need Your help now, Lord. I give my life back to You. Do with me as You will. Forgive me for my selfishness, for only wanting things done my way. Help me in the future, even when I don’t understand why You are doing the things You do, to trust You. Help me to always remember that You are just, and never again want to take that justice into my own hands.”

The healing tears began. “Restore my soul, Lord. Come back into my heart and make me clean again. Let me walk by Your still waters once more.” He hadn’t moved from his place on the bed but suddenly his heart felt right. He hadn’t experienced this feeling of peace for a long time and he knew, without a doubt, that God had heard his prayer. “Thank You, Lord,” he whispered.

His prayers changed then. He began to pray for all of his family and loved ones. He prayed for Uncle Sean and Aunt Rachel. For Marquis, his sister. For Rocky, Sharyah, Cade Bennett, and Victoria Snyder. He prayed for Jed and Sky and Brooke, thanking God that he had not been allowed to ruin that young girl’s life and asking that she and Sky find true happiness together. Then his prayers changed yet again, and he found himself praying for Lee Chang.

He sat up. There was something else he needed to do before Lee Chang was taken to Murray to stand trial.

Glancing out the window, he saw that the sun had climbed well above the horizon. He’d need to hurry if he wanted to talk to Chang. Hastily pulling on his clothes, he hopped toward the door, still working at getting his foot properly settled into his second boot.

Despite his rush, the prisoners were already gone when he got to the jail.

“Just headed out about fifteen minutes ago,” said Carle, who happened to be at the court house. “If you hurry, you can probably catch them.”

When the party came around a corner and he saw the short, hooded man blocking the trail, Ping Chi knew his time on this earth had come to an end. The man held a sawed-off shotgun casually in the crook of one arm. Jewels glittered on his fingers. Calculating eyes peered out of the slits cut in the hood.

Ping glanced to the right. Off to the edge of the trail, a pole was slung between the forks of two trees. Five hemp-rope nooses dangled from it.

He had his hands tied behind his back and his legs lashed to the stirrups like all the other prisoners. So Ping knew they would not stand a fighting chance against even this one small man.

“Howdy, gents,” the man called casually. “If you boys who are supposed to be escorting these here prisoners to trial will just disappear, I have something I would like to discuss with them.”

“Sorry. I’m afraid we can’t do that,” drawled one of the guards. “We’ve been paid to escort these men to Murray, and that’s where we intend to take them.”

“If you’ll look around you, gentlemen, you’ll see that you are surrounded, and if you value your life, it would be prudent to do as I ask.”

The six guards glanced around the forest, shifting uneasily in their saddles. Ping saw there were at least five other men surrounding them. He frowned. Something was not right. All that could be seen of the other men were the nasty weapons that protruded from their hiding places behind bushes and trees.

“Well now, I think we might be willing to reconsider,” one of the guards capitulated.

All six guards turned as one and rode their horses into the forest. Ping swallowed hard.

The hooded man sneered. “Fools,” he muttered as the men rode off. Then he turned to Lee Chang. “Chang, you should have known I would never let you live to tell about this.”

Hope quickened in Ping’s heart. Maybe the man only wanted Chang. But all hope died when the man removed his mask. Never before had Ping seen such hard, hate-filled eyes. And now that he and the other prisoners had seen his face, they too would be held under the same suspicious distrust as Chang.

Hot tears pricked the back of Ping’s eyes. He had wanted so much more from life. He was still young—only eighteen.

Ping glanced at Chang to see what he might do.

The big merchant eyed the pole with its dreadful ropes dangling in gruesome prediction of the future. “You wouldn’t dare double-cross me like this.” Chang’s gaze returned to the man in the trail.

“Just watch me, Chang.” The man laughed sadistically. “You are the worst kind of a fool. I played you right from the beginning.”

Chang strained at his bonds. “You won’t get away with this, Hunter. The girl saw you. She talked. Her husband knows everything, and there are men out looking for you even now.”

Ping knew he was bluffing, but kept silent, hoping Chang would somehow figure out a way to get them all out of this.