What happened in this room, I can only guess, but I fear it will have very dire consequences upon us all. Maybe worst of all on Blair, who does nothing wisely.
I summoned Simmons to take over and left them to the ablutions necessary to make Lord Blair Prescott presentable for the day. Then I went to Wilda’s room. The door stood open and she was nowhere to be found.
Foolish, foolish child, still I could not help but rejoice in the secret most corner of my heart. If she had truly gone, then in time perhaps Blair will come around and realize that loving me could very well be his saving grace.
Chapter Seventeen
A loud clanging startled Wilda awake. Sneezing, she fought her way from a pile of hay and spat bits of chaff from her mouth.
Where was she and how did she get here?
Sunlight poured through cracks in the wall, revealing an assortment of tools hanging there. Around her was a definite aroma of horse droppings and something burning. She was most certainly not in her room at Fairhaven. From outside came raised voices, children’s laughter and the rattling of wagons moving about.
Oh, yes. She’d had a dreadful run-in with Blair and took off with Tyra. She was in Victoria City at the blacksmith’s.
But where was Tyra? They’d fallen asleep together, now she was gone.
She scuttled to her feet. That child. How could she sneak off knowing the consequences?
Outside the clanging resumed. The blacksmith plying his trade. What was his name? Ah, yes, Smith. So much had happened over the past few days her memory continued to deceive her. Would he help her? She must find out where the lawmen had taken Calder after they left her at Fairhaven, then go there and demand his release. There was little time to waste. In this godforsaken lawless country they very well could hang him without a trial. But first she had to locate Tyra.
Best if she reveal her presence to the blacksmith first. Even as she stepped from the crude stall in which she’d slept, she heard Tyra’s childish laughter followed by a man’s deep throated chuckle.
Thank God, the child was safe.
Around the corner stood the giant of a man, head down. In one hand he grasped long-handled tongs that held a piece of iron, in the other he held a large hammer. Sweat gleamed on his bare skull and across his broad back. He didn’t see her.
Oppressive heat from the anvil filled the tiny enclosure. Tyra stood in the opening outlined by sunlight. Beyond her the street bustled with activity. Men on horseback, women leading children, wagons carrying loads. Hammers hammered, saws sawed.
“Tyra,” she breathed on a sigh of relief.
Smith stopped his downswing, almost dropped his tools, and her cousin lifted a hand to greet her.
“Move out of the doorway, now, child.” Exasperated, she went to the girl and dragged her inside.
“It’s so hot in here.”
“Then stand out in the open and let them see you. That’ll get you quickly carried back to Fairhaven where it’s liable to get a lot hotter, I promise you that.”
The words, much harsher than she’d intended, set the girl to crying. Wilda took her in her arms.
The Smithy studied them curiously.
“Mr. Smith?” she ventured, and continued to pat her cousin’s shoulder.
“In God’s name, girl. What’s happened to you? Where is Joshua? The child here only confused me with her tale.”
Turning the sobbing Tyra around and seating her on a large stump in the corner, Wilda proceeded to relate the story of Calder’s capture. The Smithy only knew him as Joshua and she set him straight. The truth would serve her better with this man.
Without pausing, she added, “I hope you can help. I mean, I’m sorry, is it all right for us to come here? I couldn’t think of anyone else to turn to.”
He cleared his throat. “Of course it is. You startled me, is all. Appearing from out of nowhere like that, looking like a haint. I didn’t know who you was at first.”
She probably did look a bit tousled, but wasn’t sure about this haint business. Picking straw from her hair, she bobbed a small curtsy. “I do apologize, sir. I’m afraid we, had no place else to go. What is a haint? If you do not mind educating me on your language.”
“A haint, child, is like as come back from the dead.”
“Oh, a ghost.”
He grinned and nodded. “Well, messier perhaps. You look sorely in need of nourishment, child, not to mention a tub of hot water.”
At his words, spoken with an earnest concern, tears welled and tracked down her cheeks. “Oh, Mr. Smith. I have to get Calder out of jail, or they’ll hang him. I fear I’m in love with him.” She burst into tears, sobbed through them. “I might even have his baby, then what would I do without him?” It wasn’t possible to utter another word.
“Ah, so it’s that way, ’tis it?” Smith gathered her against his barrel of a chest, wrapping enormous bare arms around her.
She felt like a child again, comforted in her father’s embrace. Nose buried in the smoky aroma of his apron, she sobbed as she hadn’t since the death of her parents.
It was all too much. Simply too much, and she could no longer bear it alone.
“There, now. You just cry, and when you finish we’ll talk. So this Calder fella is Joshua, and he’s in jail, huh? That young man had trouble written all over him, but he’s an honest and hard working fella. We’ll figure something out, don’t you worry.”
There were more important things to accomplish than bawling like a baby and it was time she stopped. After a huge shuddery breath she was able to speak coherently.
“I have heard stories of what you call lynchings, and I’m so afraid for him. We have to hurry. But I have no idea where they took him.”
He patted at her shoulder. “Now you just hold up, little gal. Think about this. You could end up tarred with the same brush if you’re not careful.”
Oh, this country and its outlandish forms of speech would be the end of her, yet. “Tarred?”
Tyra spoke up. “Tarred? That sounds ominous.”
“It very well could be, young’un. Calumet might toss you both in the pokey, for trying to pull a jail break.”
“But it wasn’t…I mean, not really. Pokey? Jail break?” Frustrated, she peered at him.
“Jail. Calaboose. Far as he’s concerned yours was a genuine snatching. He’s had a posse out looking for you ever since that high falutin’ Earl or Duke, or whatever, come hollering into town on his bob-tailed pony demanding they scour the countryside for his fiancay. Some of them remittance men is as wild as any coyote, ain’t they? Drinking and shooting and carousing around. They couldn’t wait to join in the fray. Our sheriff Calumet, he won’t take kindly to finding out the snatching was all a hoax. As for your Calder, if he really is an outlaw, well, then…” He shrugged.
“But surely when I explain everything.”
“Yes, and I helped her, too, so I’m part to blame,” Tyra added.
Smith’s glance slid from Wilda to Tyra and back again. She began to squirm. Wasn’t he going to help her after all? What would she do?
Without saying another word, he headed toward the back of the shop.
“Where are you going?”
“Nowheres, jest yet.” He emerged from the shadows carrying a long shotgun.
Breaking it open, he peered down the enormous barrels. “Ain’t had call to use this big boy in some time, but mayhap we’ll need it fore this day is over.”
“What are we going to do?”
“Well, hell, little darlin’. We’re gonna break your outlaw out of jail over to Hays City. Do my heart good to pull something over on that fat wad of bullshit…er, ’scuse my French.”
About French, she hadn’t heard any, but the words “break your outlaw out of jail” slammed through her head. First she instigated a fake kidnapping, then had actually considered helping outlaws rob a bank, now she was about to become involved in a jail break. She felt as if someone had caught her in a lasso and was dragging her along behind one of those bob-tailed ponies.
“Wait a minute. I only wanted to tell the truth and get him free. Not just go in shooting.”
He made a rude noise. “The truth. And what is that, little lady? That your Calder is an outlaw, that he came to town to commit no-telling-what dastardly deed, that he’s already robbed everyone in Kansas over twenty-one with a purse of money.”
“Did you know who he was all along? Even when you hired him as Joshua.”
“I figgered he was not who he claimed. Them that takes a fake name usually is riding on the wrong side of the law. And them that rides on the wrong side of the law got a cast in their eyes. Knew he warn’t no smithy, for sure. Wanted to see what he was up to. Nice enough feller, done the work. But soon enough he was gone and so was you, right after the two of you cast goggly eyes at each other in my presence. I figured you run away together and we’d never see hide nor hair of you again. Ain’t that what you’d a thought?”
Goggly eyes? A grin curled her lips. She couldn’t help it; he was so outspoken and colorful. “We would have been gone, too, had it not been for Baron’s insistence that I help him rob the bank.” Too late she clapped a hand over her mouth.
“The bank, huh? Aiming high, I’d say. And dragging a fine young lady such as yourself into their dastardly deeds. Ought to be ashamed.” He rummaged through a wooden box and came up with a handful of shotgun shells. “Thought these was here somewhere. Now I hope you be telling me your feller had nothing to do with those bank robbing plans.” He popped a shell in each barrel and snapped the gun closed, stared at her.
Shaking her head ferociously, she blurted. “Not and have me with him, he didn’t. He wasn’t really….” She stopped, biting her tongue at the lie. She had offered to help, but it was only a small fib, really. Maybe she could explain. “You see, I mean, it’s only about Rachel and her little ones.” She stopped, gazed at the shotgun. “What are you going to do with that? You’re not going to shoot anyone, are you?”
“Not ’less they give me no other choice. Who be this Rachel gal?”
When she started to reply, he held up a hand. “Never you mind. Things is already complicated enough without more storying. Be best if we wait till dusk to ride on over to Hays. You’ll have to go along, hold the horses. Won’t be too hard to bust him outta that cracker box jailhouse of Calumet’s. I tell you this, young’un. He ain’t robbing no bank after I break him outta jail, and that’s a fact. We’ll be plum to Nebraska fore they raise their heads from their pillows come morning.”
“We? But, y-you have a business here, and you do not know us. Why would you do this for two strangers?”
A grin crinkled the sooty skin all the way around his bald head. “I don’t know you, ’tis true, but you’re apt to take it on yourself and get caught. I could tell you stories, little gal, that’d curl your toes, but I reckon I won’t. Suffice it to say I’ve had my share of adventures, not all of them on the right side of the law. I fought in the war on the wrong side, too, truth be known. Leastways, considering who won, I was on the wrong side. Been in Kansas nearly ever since. Longest I ever planted myself in one spot. It’s time I moved on. Anyway, I’m sickened by these no-count English fops. Man has to use up all his years in his own way, not someone else’s.
“I got me a hankering to set that boy free and send the two of you off to start using up your years. It’ll do my heart a whole lot of good. And I especially got a desire to best that Calumet. He’s a horse’s ass.” He laughed. “There I go again, saying bad words in front of such pretty little gals as the two of you.”
“Lately, I’ve heard worse. Believe me.”
“Me too,” Tyra chimed in.
He cocked his head, looked her up and down. “Where in tarnation did you come by that outfit? It’ll never do for a jailbreak.”
Rachel’s dress was a bit tattered. Rachel. Oh dear, what about Rachel? She and Calder couldn’t go off without helping her get back home.
So she told Smith about their friend and her little ones. He listened without interrupting until she finished.
“And this poor lass is alone with no man to care for her or her wee ones?”
Wilda nodded. “Calder’s been doing what he can when they, uh, rob someone.”
“Like Jesse James? Robbing the rich to give to the poor?” Smith grinned. “Well, that even makes me more favorable to busting him out of jail. She needs a way to git home to St. Louis, this Rachel gal?”
“Yes, and I wanted to help rob the bank so we could give her the money.” Tears once more filled her eyes.
“Willing to become an outlaw for a friend, was you?”
For a moment she thought he was mocking her, but his expression told her different.
“I’ve been around these parts a good long while, and had no reason to spend my fortune. I believe I just might favor sending this lady and her young’uns back home.”
“You would? But, you don’t even know her, or me either, for that matter.”
“Makes nary difference to me. It’d make me feel good to know I done something righteous in my life. We’ll stop by the depot and buy her tickets on the train afore we go to Hays to bust out your man. How’s that sound?”
For the first time since fleeing Blair Prescott’s gloomy old castle, she felt a ray of hope. She squealed and threw her arms around Smith’s sturdy neck. When she backed away he laughed and so did Tyra.
“What?”
“You managed to scruffy yourself up more than before. Black smudges all over you and that rag you call a dress.”
“I seem to have left my wardrobe behind.” She joined them in their merriment.
After a moment, he sobered. “Your Duke didn’t do something bad to you, did he? A little gal like you? He ought to be skint.”
Not about to air the dirty secrets of Fairhaven, and not sure what skint meant, she shook her head. “No, nothing like that. We…well, let’s say we had a parting of the ways. All my belongings are there, and I can’t go back for them.”
“Well, I reckon we’ll just have to do something about that.” He studied her some more, then glanced at Tyra. “Now, this young’un knows how to dress for a jail breakout. But if you’ll wait right here, and stay out of sight, I’ll be back with duds you can proudly wear on our quest.”
“Wait. I can’t pay…” But he was gone, as if she hadn’t spoken at all. That she was actually beginning to understand his language delighted her. Duds, huh? How quaint.