The Accidental Lawman (12 page)

T
he following Saturday, Amelia found herself at home mixing a pint of rheumatism liniment for Hattie Ellenberg while Rebekah nursed the baby and little Orson amused himself exploring the parlor floor.

“What’s in it?” Hattie eyed the amber bottle on the counter that ran along the back wall of the room.

Amelia was carefully writing on a label to glue on the bottle.

“Laudanum, oils of sassafras, cedar, some turpentine and some camphor gum. I also added tincture of capsicum.” She shoved a cork in the top of the bottle and shook it. “All in an alcohol base. Rub it on your feet whenever they get to bothering you.”

“Mind if I use some right now?” Hattie’s eyes were shadowed with pain. “My ankles hurt like the dickens.”

“Of course. When you get back to the ranch, apply some more and stay off your feet for a while.”

Across the room, Rebekah shook her head, fastened the bodice on her gown and lifted the baby to her shoulder to burp her. “Hattie doesn’t like to sit down.”

Amelia smiled. “Your English is nigh onto perfect now.”

After spending most of her life among the Comanche, Rebekah Ellenberg had to relearn everything she’d known in her former life, including English.

Hattie sat down on the old overstuffed chair that Amelia’s father used to favor most and began to unlace her worn shoes. Orson toddled over to watch and clung to the folds of Hattie’s skirt. Once his grandmother had her shoes and socks off, Orson tried to grab for the liniment bottle.

With Rebekah’s hands full, it was up to Amelia to rescue him. She crossed the room and swung him onto her hip.

“No wonder you have rheumatism, Hattie, if you’re hefting this little one around all the time. This child is heavy as a boulder.”

While Amelia jiggled Orson up and down, Hattie massaged liniment onto her ankles and feet. Once she was finished, she began to pull on her socks again.

“Feels better already,” she said.

“Good. I’ve been experimenting with the formula a bit,” Amelia told her. “If it stops working, let me know. I’ve got another recipe with camphor and skunk oil—pretty drastic measures, though.”

“Skunk?” Rebekah shrugged, a puzzled expression on her face.

“Black-and-white animal. Size of a cat.” Hattie held her nose and said, “Pee-ewe!”

“Yes, I know skunk.” Rebekah laughed, the sound filling the empty corners of the small room.

As Orson reached up and began to dislodge her braid, Amelia wondered what it would be like to share her days with family within these walls. Evan had been making himself scarce since he was fifteen. Folks would drop by
or send someone for her, but when she wasn’t treating someone, she spent hour upon hour alone with her oils and dried herbs, her volumes of handwritten recipes or working in her garden.

Hattie paused and asked Amelia if she had a button hook. Rather than put Orson down, Amelia carried him into her room and back again. She handed the metal hook to Hattie.

“How are you holdin’ up, Amelia?” Hattie asked, her head bent over her high black shoes, and deftly worked the hook. “We saw the posters all over town,” she added. “It can’t be easy, worrying about Evan.”

True to his word, Hank had spoken to many of the townsfolk before hanging Wanted posters around Glory. Though she hadn’t seen him since the church potluck, answering sick calls forced her out of the house. Everywhere she went, people were caring and solicitous, still, it was hard to hide her embarrassment.

She was constantly plagued by the notion that she had not only failed Evan, but in so doing, she’d failed to keep her promise to her father.

“It’s difficult,” Amelia admitted. She looked at Hattie, a woman who had borne terrible pain and loss in her life—the death of her husband and daughter at the hands of Comanche raiders, her own near scalping and unspeakable crimes against her person—and yet Hattie had found the strength to persevere.

“I put my trust in the Lord,” Amelia added.

“That’s all any of us can do,” Hattie agreed with a nod. “‘Though He brings grief, He will show compassion.’ The Lord has seen me through impossible times.”

She finished hooking her shoes and reached for Orson. “Now look at everything I have to be thankful for…not only is Joe content working the ranch his father and I started,
but he’s got a fine wife in Rebekah here. And I’ve got these two healthy grandbabies. There’s not a luckier woman in all of Texas. You just hang on, Amelia, you hear?”

Amelia promised she would.

“We saw that Silas Jones is part of this Perkins Gang,” Hattie said. “He worked roundup for us a couple of times. Always seemed like a bad apple to me.”

“Not a good man,” Rebekah agreed. “He has a dark heart.”

It was hard to imagine Evan hanging out with dark-hearted men. Amelia watched Rebekah gather up baby Mellie. Hattie set Orson on the floor, then fished around in her reticule. Coins jingled against one another.

“Here’s two bits.” She handed the quarters over to Amelia. “I’d pay double if you’d let me. My ankles feel better already.”

“I’m glad to be of help.” Amelia took the coins and set them on the makeshift counter beside a brass balance scale she used for measuring herbs.

Hattie noticed folded copies of the
Glory Gazette
on a hassock nearby. “We’ve sure been enjoying the newspaper. One of the neighbors dropped the first issue by a few weeks ago. That Hank Larson seems like a real nice man. Ran into him at the mercantile this morning and he asked if he could interview me. Wants to tell my story. What story have I got to tell? I’d like to know. He says I should tell how I survived the attack. Said that folks back East would be real interested. I told him I did what I had to do—with the Lord’s help.”

“What about Rebekah?” Amelia suggested. She turned to the lovely young woman with startlingly blue eyes and rich dark hair and watched Rebekah’s cheeks darken. “She has quite a story to tell, too.”

Amelia doubted Hank could find a more interesting subject than Rebekah Ellenberg, former Comanche captive.

“That would depend on Rebekah, wouldn’t it?” Hattie and Amelia turned to Rebekah. The young mother watched them with interest.

Rebekah began slowly, “Would the newspaperman tell the story of the Nermernuh? Of my life with them?”

“The what?” Amelia asked.

“The Comanche,” Hattie explained, scooping up Orson as he was reaching for a doily hanging off a nearby spindle table.

Amelia thought for a moment, then nodded. “I think everyone would be interested in knowing how you survived for so long.”

Just then, there was a quick knock at the door and Joe walked in.

“Hello, Amelia.” He pulled off his hat, his attention going straight to his wife and newborn infant, and a smile lit up his face. “I came to collect my family.”

“They’re all ready,” Amelia said, thrilled to see Joe so happy.

Hattie reached for Amelia and gave her a mighty hug. “Thank you so much for the liniment. I’ll remember Evan in my prayers.”

“Thank you, Hattie.” Then Amelia turned to Joe, “Since she won’t listen to me, I’d like you to see that she stays off her feet for a few days. Give that liniment a chance to work.” She watched him reach for Orson.

“I’ll try, but you know Ma.”

“I’m proud to say I do,” Amelia told him.

Hattie and Joe were out the door, headed for the wagon parked out front, but Rebekah lingered behind.

“Is everything all right?” Amelia feared there might be
something wrong with Rebekah or the baby that the young mother wanted to speak of in private.

“I hope maybe you will do something for me,” Rebekah said, glancing outside where Joe helped Hattie up onto the seat of the buckboard.

“Of course.” Amelia agreed without hesitation.

“Tell the newspaperman that I would like to talk to him. I will tell him the truth about the Nermernuh.”

Rebekah was off the porch and heading toward the front gate before Amelia could tell her that talking to Hank Larson was the last thing in the world she wanted to do.

It was late afternoon but there were still plenty of hours of summer sunlight left in the day as Hank stepped out onto the street in front of the newspaper office and joined other costumed revelers heading down Main Street toward the church.

He fell into step behind a pirate, a woman dressed as a cowhand in a split skirt, and a little butterfly in a fluffy pink gown with droopy organza wings. The family in front of him laughed together as the little girl ran ahead a few yards and then back to urge her parents to hurry.

Hank’s costume—hastily put together from an assortment of bean tins and bottles he had dug out of the trash and strung together with twine—clinked and clanked with every step. Earlier in the week, when Brand McCormick showed up at the newspaper office to encourage him to attend the masquerade, Hank convinced himself the only reason he was going was to report on the event and hopefully find a replacement sheriff.

Desperate times called for desperate measures.

Tonight, as the sky painted itself with the pastel tints of twilight, he walked the boardwalk chiding himself for
being such a fool with every step he took. With every clink and clank he warned himself that he was not only going to run into Charity, but possibly Amelia, though he couldn’t imagine her showing up at the masquerade with her brother’s name on Wanted posters plastered around the county.

No matter how hard he tried to dismiss her from his mind—and sometimes he actually succeeded for an entire hour—thoughts of Amelia kept coming back to haunt him. Once in a while he would catch a glimpse of her walking down Main Street and suddenly he recalled the scent of lavender that lingered about her, the sound of her voice, the warmth of her presence. He tried to ignore his feelings. Finally, feeling guilty because he was betraying Tricia’s memory, he had faced the fact that he would be a fool to deny his attraction to Miss Amelia Hawthorne.

Angry at himself for his weakness, he kicked a pebble off the boardwalk and kept walking.

Avoiding Amelia only seemed to make matters worse. He’d heard from others that she seemed to be “holding up well.” Mary Margaret Cutter informed him that Amelia looked a bit “peaked” and Harrison Barker added that she appeared to have lost some weight. Hank spent time alternately worrying about her and hoping that her brother would be apprehended in another county by another sheriff and that he’d soon be rid of his duties—which so far had only amounted to nothing but hauling Harvey Ruggles to Comanche and hanging Wanted posters around town.

The closer he got to the church hall, the more he became convinced he should head back home. He noticed an assortment of people dressed as circus clowns congregated beside the open double doors.

Just inside, Reverend McCormick wore street clothes beneath a red cotton cloak tied over one shoulder. A Roman gladiator’s helmet covered his blond head. Brand stood in the doorway, greeting folks as they entered the hall. When he spotted Hank lingering outside, the preacher called to him. It was too late to turn back.

Hank moved forward with the crowd, shook Reverend McCormick’s hand as he entered.

“Welcome, Sheriff!” Brand pounded Hank on the shoulder, which sent up a chorus of clanks and clunks. “What are you supposed to be? A rubbish heap? Glad you could make it!”

Before Hank could answer, Brand was already greeting the family behind him. Hank stepped into the hall and immediately spotted Charity across the room near the small platform stage. She was dressed as a baker with a high white hat and white apron.

Beside her, young Sam was standing over a huge bass drum, threatening to beat it to death with a serving spoon. The boy was wearing a bowler hat that was so big it had slipped down to his eyebrows. Sam’s false mustache kept twitching and drooping to one side. His sister was nowhere to be seen.

Charity’s attention was focused on her charge, so Hank slipped into the room unnoticed. As a king and queen in paper crowns with broom handle scepters strolled by arm in arm, Hank gazed around the room, reminding himself to ask the preacher to let him make an announcement, a plea actually, for someone to volunteer to take over as sheriff.

A cowboy sauntered past in a court jester’s hat complete with bells. Hank looked around for the Ellenbergs, but didn’t see them anywhere.

And then he saw her.

Amelia was off to one side of the stage all alone. She’d dressed as Bo Peep with a ruffled, lemon-yellow pinafore over one of her plain black skirts and white shirtwaist blouses. Her hair was parted into two thick braids and a huge floppy white bow was pinned atop her head. She had both hands wrapped around a tall wooden staff—also tied with a bow. She’d be mortified if she knew how vulnerable she appeared tonight—as if Miss Peep had lost her last lamb.

Amelia watched the room fill with not only excited church members, but other townsfolk, as well. Everyone from near and far was welcome, even encouraged to attend. She thought the masquerade gala and bake sale one of Reverend McCormick’s finest fund-raising ideas. The costumes folks had created on such short notice were amazing. There was a couple dressed as Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, as well as Lord and Lady Macbeth. One of the ranchers wore a coat of many colors.

What she did notice—possibly because of her mood—was that nearly every single person who had entered the church hall was with someone. Not only were there families present, but clusters of cowhands from nearby ranches. She even recognized a pair of Indian scouts who had worked for the army. They hadn’t bothered to wear costumes, but in their usual regalia—a mix of traditional Indian loincloths over army trousers and pieces of uniform jackets—they fit right in.

She’d never been more amazed at her friends and fellow townsfolk than she was tonight. And she’d never felt more alone.

It had taken all the mettle she could muster to attend, but everyone she’d ministered to this past week, as well
as people she ran into on the street, insisted that she not let the fact that Evan was in trouble keep her at home. Though everyone assured her over and over that his actions had nothing to do with her, she wondered how she had missed the signs of his deep discontent. Why hadn’t she been able to help him before it was too late?