The Lawman's Bride

Chapter Two

The marshal returned for supper. He was at one of Emma’s tables, but Sophie spotted him the moment she carried a dinner tray from the kitchen. No worry. She had this role down perfectly. She knew her strengths, and being convincing was one of them.

The plate fiasco had been the highlight of conversation around the dining hall that afternoon. Sophie was weary of the looks and questions. These girls lived for a whiff of excitement, she told herself, refusing to become irritated.

“He’s having the flank steak, sautéed mushrooms and a roasting ear, with cheesecake for dessert,” Emma whispered from behind her as Sophie filled two cups from the gigantic silver coffee urn.

“I didn’t ask,” she whispered back. She hadn’t had her own dinner yet, and she got a little testy when she was hungry.

“He’s partial to that cheesecake,” Olivia Larson said on her way by.

“I don’t care.” She looked over her shoulder to find the two females grinning at each other. “Very well, enjoy yourselves at my expense,” she said lightheartedly.

After placing the filled cups on a tray, she carried them to her customers, two cattle ranchers who’d just had the filet mignon cooked in brandy.

Try as she might, she couldn’t keep her gaze from drifting across the room to the marshal. He sat at a corner table where he could watch both the door to the street and what was happening outside the front windows.

He met her gaze and offered a nod.

Sophie quickly turned back to her table. “Are you gentlemen ready for dessert?” she asked.

“I am a man who appreciates sweets,” the older of the two men replied with a wink.

“I’ll have the applesauce cake,” the other answered.

“And you, sir?” she asked the first gentleman.

“What’s your favorite?” he asked.

“I’m partial to the chestnut pudding.”

“Then that’s what I’ll have,” he decided.

“I’ll be right back.” She carried the tray to the kitchen and asked for their desserts.

When she returned and set plates in front of them, her newfound admirer asked, “Do you like the opera, miss?”

“I do.”

“Will you join me this Saturday evening?”

“I’m afraid I have to work the dinner shift,” she replied easily. “It’s kind of you to ask, however.”

“Perhaps the following week.”

She refilled their coffee cups. Enough girls had been hired after her that she never had to work Saturday evenings unless she volunteered. “I’ll have to see whether or not I’m on the schedule to work next Saturday evening.”

As though encouraged, he smiled and picked up his fork.

She hadn’t meant to encourage him. She wasn’t interested in what he had to offer. All she wanted was to be in control of her own destiny, and being bound to a man wasn’t part of that plan.

She attended to her other patrons and eventually returned to the coffee urns.

“What did he say to you?” Emma whispered.

Sophie glanced at the marshal who was finishing his cheesecake and a cup of coffee. “Who?”

“Charles Barlow. They say he’s the richest rancher between here and Wichita.”

“Oh, him. He invited me to the opera house.”

Emma looked as though she would swoon. “You’re the luckiest woman in all of Kansas.” She fanned herself with the hem of her apron. “He’s taken a shine to you, hasn’t he?”

“He’s a man,” Sophie replied dryly. “Men take a shine to anything in skirts.”

“When are you going to the opera?”

“I said no.”

“What?”

“I told him I had to work.”

Emma touched her fist to her forehead in a frustrated gesture. “Any girl here would give a month’s wages for that invitation. Why didn’t you say yes?”

“Because I don’t want to go with him.”

“Trade me tables.”

“What?”

“Trade me tables. Maybe he’ll ask me.”

“Mrs. Winters would have my hide,” Sophie objected.

“She’s gone for the evening. Come on, why not? Give someone else a chance. I won’t take your tip. Please, Sophie.”

She didn’t share Emma’s passionate need to endear herself to a man, but neither did she have the heart to stand in her way. Sophie waved her off. “Go. They’re ready for coffee refills.”

Emma kept her squeal discreet, composed herself and picked up the pot Sophie had just filled and set it on her tray. With a determined nod, she headed for the table where the cattlemen sat.

Sophie observed as Emma greeted the ranchers. The Barlow man said something to her, and she blushed and giggled.

Shaking her head, Sophie wiped her hands and glanced at the table she’d traded for. Marshal Connor had finished eating and was glancing around for his waitress. Darn it. She gathered herself and approached.

“Would you like more coffee?” she asked him.

He glanced up at her. “No thanks. I’ll be makin’ myself a pot when I get back to the jail. I have work to do tonight.”

“What kind of work keeps you busy in the evening?”

“I make a weekly report to the county court, one to the railroad, as well.” He took coins from inside his leather vest and laid them on the table. “I have a stack of papers this high on my desk that I never seem to get through.” He held his palm a foot above the tabletop.

“I’ll see that Emma gets her tip.” She stacked his plates and set the empty cup on top. She couldn’t help asking, “Get a lot of mail, do you?”

“Telegrams mostly. Why?”

“Well, you said you have so many papers on your desk.”

“If someone’s wanted by the law you say he has a paper out on ‘im.”

“I see. You mean wanted posters.”

He nodded.

“How much do those papers actually look like the criminals? I mean, can you actually recognize an outlaw from one of those drawings?”

“Depends mostly on the artist.” He stood and pushed in his chair. “Pinkertons have the best artists.”

They glanced at each other and she looked away.

“Have a good evening, Marshal.”

He picked up his hat from the seat of a chair and held the brim a moment before settling it on his head with a nod. “Evenin’, Miss Hollis.”

He turned and strode out the door.

For the rest of the dinner shift, Sophie thought of little else than that stack of “papers” on the marshal’s desk. She didn’t even taste her chestnut pudding as she sat in the employees’ dining room after her shift.

It was probable that her likeness was on one or more of those wanted posters. But she’d used so many disguises that even the most talented Pinkerton would have trouble capturing her true image, she assured herself. If there was a drawing, it was most likely a picture of a young woman with fair hair and a beauty spot. Or of a curly-haired redhead wearing wire-rimmed glasses. None of her personas resembled the way she looked and dressed today.

Here, she couldn’t disguise herself beyond her darkened hair. Mrs. Winters did periodic checks of their faces with a damp towel. No hussies allowed in the Harvey House.

Sophie added her dishes to a pile, thanked the kitchen workers and found the lad who carried wood and kept the stoves free of ashes. “Jimmy.”

“Miss Hollis.” He was stacking wood on a canvas sling.

“Did you run my errand for me?”

“Yes’m.” He reached into the bag that hung on his hip.

She placed her hand on his arm to halt him while she took a moment to glance around. “Okay. Where are they?”

“Right here.” He produced three cigars.

Sophie gave him four coins from her tip money and closed her fingers around the cigars with a smile. “Thank you.”

“Anytime, miss.”

She hid her stash in her skirt pocket and made her way up the back stairs to change clothing. She needed to get out and get some fresh air. Speculating was getting her nowhere.

It was unlikely that the marshal would connect any of the faces on those posters to her, but she couldn’t afford to take any chances.

Willard DeWeise snored loudly from his cell at the back of the building. His dinner tray, licked clean, still sat on the corner of Clay’s desk. Clay picked up a rib bone and whistled low.

Sam, his aged hound, made his ambling way to Clay and stuck his nose under his hand. “Here, fella. Can’t ya smell it?”

Clay stuck the bone between Sam’s yellowed teeth and scratched one scarred and floppy brown ear. Sam settled himself at Clay’s feet with a grunt and licked the bone.

“Why don’t you put that damned dog out of its misery?” Hershel Vidlak, the other marshal asked. “Thing cain’t see, cain’t smell, cain’t take a piss lessen you walk him out and hold it for him.”

“Why don’t you shut your yap before I put you out of your misery?” Clay volleyed back with his usual lack of humor. It was dark, but the confined office was still sweltering. If the lawmen were cranky, he couldn’t imagine what the rowdies in the saloons would be like.

He got up and grabbed his hat. “I’m gonna make rounds.”

“I’m leavin’, too,” Hershel told him. “The missus made a strawberry pie this mornin’.”

“See you tomorrow.” Clay walked out behind Hershel and locked the door. They walked along opposite sides of the street, Clay checking the stores he passed.

Discordant music blared from the open doors of the Side-Track Saloon, yellow light spilling across the boardwalk. He pushed open the batwing doors, peanut shells and grit crunching beneath his boots.

“You workin’, Marshal?” Tubs McElroy, the burly gravel-voiced bartender, wiped beer from the polished bar with an already soggy cloth and paused with his beefy hand on a glass mug.

Clay rested his boot on the brass rail and thumbed his hat back on his head. “I’m callin’ it a night. Set one up for me.”

Tubs slanted a mug beneath the barrel spigot and foam ran over his sausagelike fingers onto the floor. He sat the brew on the bar with a whack.

Clay reached into his pocket for a quarter.

“Nope.” Tubs held up a glistening palm. “Mr. Dotson don’t let me take no payment from marshals or deputies. Havin’ a lawman sittin’ in stops a whole lot o’ trouble from ever startin’.”

Clay shrugged and sipped the lukewarm brew. He wasn’t the sociable type. His presence might raise the eyebrows of the regulars, but a stranger to town, like the one he’d come to observe, wouldn’t know this wasn’t his usual routine.

There were many establishments nicer than the Side-Track for killing an evening if one had a mind to, but this was where the fellow registered at the Strong Hotel as Monte Morgan had chosen to spend the last few evenings.

Clay glanced into the grainy mirror behind the bar and observed the other men standing on both sides of him, the haze of blue-gray smoke that hung near the low ceiling a ghostly backdrop behind their heads. He turned enough to speak to the man on his right in a friendly fashion, one elbow on the bar, both eyes casually scouring the crowd.

A few stockmen and herders sat at one of the green felt poker tables, seriously attending to their game. Cowboys, gamblers and soiled doves filled most of the other tables.

“Heard a new family from Vermont bought the Bowman place,” Clay said, just to come up with something to say.

The store owner beside him looked up in surprise. Everyone in Newton knew the marshal wasn’t one for small talk. “Bought himself a whole rig over at the livery, he did,” he replied.

From a platform at the rear of the building, a tall skinny man in faded trousers and a leather vest preached and read passages from his Bible. After several minutes he was replaced by one of the scantily-clad girls, who belted out an off-key rendition of “When The Roll Is Called Up Yonder.”

“The daughter’s easy to look at,” he went on. “One of these cowboys’ll snatch her up fast.”

Clay nodded, feigning interest in the conversation. Monte Morgan sat with a bunch of well-dressed men who were taking turns listening to the singing and preaching while patting the bottoms of the girls who sat on their laps. Morgan was lean, but Clay sensed whipcord muscle beneath the dark suit, silk vest and string tie. The weapon at his hip was an ivory-handled .45, a six-shooter in an embossed holster. Pretty.

Morgan’s confident smile and grandiose mannerisms gave him the larger-than-life quality ladies liked. That was apparent by the fawning and almost laughable way they maneuvered themselves, trying to be the one who got his attention. Maybe he tipped well.

Clay couldn’t put his finger on why the man troubled him. Newton was the home of the Sante Fe roundhouse and hundreds of strangers passed through each week. It was impossible to watch or even check out each one of them. Morgan hadn’t done anything to draw attention, hadn’t so much as tossed a match off the boardwalk. But something about him made Clay wary. Morgan didn’t seem like just another rancher. Clay’s gut instincts had paid off more than once, and he figured he should go through the papers to see if there were clues to this Morgan’s past there.

Sophie strolled along Oak to Broadway where the darkened park beckoned. There were gas lamps along the street, but in the one square block between Broadway and Seventh, only the moon lit the dark brick walkways, hedges and flowers.

The park wasn’t much farther than the boardinghouse from the railroads tracks, but it was a good bit farther from the roundhouse where men worked and switched the tracks all night long. Both of Newton’s public parks were in the First Ward, nestled in housing areas and away from businesses, saloons and billiard halls. It was the closest thing to being out of the city she could find, and she loved the impression of peace and privacy, no matter how false.

Taking a tin of matches from her skirt pocket, she settled on a stone bench still warm from the day’s heat, lit a cigar and blew a smoke ring into the star-filled sky. Hours like these presented more freedom than she’d known in all of her twenty-three years. With liberating calmness, she attempted to clear her thoughts, lying back on the bench to study the night canopy overhead.

She thought of the coming weekend, of three days she could spend any way she chose. She could take a train to Wichita and shop. She could don a disguise and attend the opera right here in Newton. Her lips curled up at the idea. There was something wickedly gratifying about carrying out a pretense such as the last one she imagined. No one would be harmed in the process.

Those thoughts led to others of former guises and the reason she had a need for anonymity. The image of those wanted posters swam against the sky, the stars twinkling like the city marshal’s badge. She’d feel so much better if she knew he wasn’t going to shuffle through a stack of papers and wonder why a drawing of a certain female criminal looked familiar.

She eased the chain from the collar of her shirtwaist and squinted at the face of the dainty watch. Only an hour left until the doors of the dormitory were locked for curfew. Her fingers curled around the sleek leather case in her pocket and her mind raced. She’d secretly let herself back in on more than one occasion. She could do it again.

She hurried to the northwest corner of the park where she stubbed out her cigar and scuffed dirt over it with the toe of her shoe. One more block to the north and a little farther west, and she made out the wooden-framed jail. No light shone from the windows. Confident in her skills and her ability to talk her way out of any situation, she continued on.

After peering through the panes of glass into the darkened interior, it took only seconds to work her magic on the lock. The door swung open, and she closed it behind her quickly, acclimating herself to the dark. Snoring droned from a hallway at the rear of the building.

She drew the shades and lit the lamp on the largest desk, turning the wick down low.

A scratching sound and an oomph made her heart leap, and she whirled, expecting to find someone who’d been waiting in the darkness. She readied herself to run.

A big old dog struggled to its feet from a pallet near the wall, and, with nails scratching the wood floor, padded over to where she stood poised.

Her whole body slumped with relief. She bent and rubbed the animal’s head and soft floppy ears, and it turned its nose into her hand and gave a halfhearted lick.

The stack of wanted posters was in plain sight and nearly as thick as the marshal had described. A brass key ring was being used as a paperweight. She gave the dog one last pat and sat, subconsciously noting the leather seat of the chair had been worn to fit the contours of the man. She set the keys aside. In silence broken only by rustling paper, the hiss of the lamp, and the resonating snore from the depths of the building, she turned pages, scanning drawings and descriptions.

She’d learned that there was more than one marshal in Newton, and several deputies: so, if someone should catch her here, she would say another had let her in to wait.

From somewhere in the back, the prisoner gulped air and mumbled in his sleep, startling her. She paused to listen until the monotonous snore resumed. The dog went back to its pallet and lay down with a grunt.

Two names and drawings caught her attention and snagged her breath from her chest. Gabriella Dumont and Joseph Richardson the caption read. Garrett had been darkening his mustache the last time she’d seen him. He’d had his head shaved, and the baldness had completely changed his appearance.

She’d have been offended at the drawing of her if she hadn’t been so grateful for the artist’s lack of talent. Plain eyes, plain nose, plain mouth, nondescript hair—the likeness could be any young woman.

But beneath the drawings and descriptions were the words theft and extortion and a specific list of petty crimes. One word in bold type leaped off the page and brought a sick lump to her throat; the allegation she’d most dreaded and feared: murder.

Sophie shuffled through the rest of the papers, found two more depicting her and folded the incriminating evidence into her pocket before straightening the pile and returning its order. She set the key ring exactly as it had been on top.

She extinguished the lamp and raised the dusty shades before stepping out the door. Hopefully anyone returning would think that the last person had forgotten to lock the door. She was halfway to the corner, when an odd whooshing sound stopped her. She spun on her heel.

Flames rose above the jailhouse from the back wall.

Chapter Three

Sophie’s heart stopped, thinking of the prisoner who’d been sleeping in a cell, of the old dog inside. She glanced around, not seeing anyone nearby. Icy dread compressed her chest. Minutes ago she’d been glad the street was deserted; but now she wished for someone to appear so she wouldn’t have to reveal her unexplainable presence there.

She never did anything impulsively, but instinct took over this time. Running back, she threw open the door and nudged the dog who still lay on its bundle of blankets. “Go outside! Get!”

She grabbed the keys. A hallway brought her to a row of cells lit through the barred window by the nearest streetlight on Main. Thick acrid smoke filled the entire rear portion of the building, and flames licked at the outside corner. A man she could barely make out through the haze clung to the bars of the cell where he was trapped. He attempted to shout at her, but only coughed.

Sophie knelt to the cell door and wasted precious seconds wiping tears from her burning eyes. She couldn’t take a breath without her lungs feeling as though they would burst. The waves of heat were terrifying and the acrid smell of burning wood cloying.

“Get me outta here!” the man shouted.

“I’m trying!”

The ring slipped from her fingers and clanged on the floor. “Shit, shit, shit!”

“Lady, ple-e-ase!”

Sophie fumbled for the right key and slid it into the lock, twisting until the tumblers rolled and the door swung open, clanging against the next cell.

The choking prisoner stumbled past her.

“Is there anyone else?” she called after him.

He was gone.

The other doors were slightly ajar, indicating empty cells so she ran toward the front, pausing at a wheezing sound. The dog.

“Where are you, fella?” She stumbled across the room, smoke billowing from the rear now. Her lungs ached and her eyes burned. She couldn’t draw a breath that didn’t taste like ash.

“Anybody in here?” someone called from the open doorway.

“Yes!” She coughed. “I’m looking for the dog!”

“Get outta there, lady!”

Following the wheezing whine, she found the animal cowering under the desk. She had to get down on all fours and use every last ounce of strength to catch its front legs and drag the mutt toward her.

“Lady!”

The dog weighed as much as she did, and she was out of breath, but she tugged with all her might, inching the trembling animal toward safety.

The man met her at the doorway, and helped her lift the dog. Together they stumbled away from the burning jail until she collapsed in the middle of the street with the dog across her lap.

Several men gathered around and stared.

“Did someone go for the fire department?” she asked, her voice a rasp.

“Harry went,” was the reply. One by one they turned to watch the fire.

She coughed until her chest ached. Sophie moved the dog aside and used the hem of her skirt to wipe her running eyes.

When she could squint, she glanced around. The prisoner was nowhere to be seen. Sophie collapsed backward in the dust. Of all the luck.

What seemed like an eternity was only minutes as she waited. Finally the firemen turned out with their horse-drawn wagon holding barrels of water.

Marshal Vidlak and another deputy arrived and helped Sophie out of the street and over to a patch of dry grass. “You’re one o’ them girls from the Arcade, ain’t you?”

Sophie glanced at the man and nodded.

The younger deputy had gone back for the dog and laid him beside where Sophie sat. The poor animal sounded as though it couldn’t catch a breath.

“I’m surprised that damned dog made it out,” the marshal said. “Cain’t walk further’n two feet at a stretch.”

“I pulled him out,” Sophie said.

“The hell you say.”

“Sam!” came a concerned shout.

The dog’s head jerked up.

“Sam!” Unmistakable, that voice.

“Over here, Clay,” Marshal Vidlak returned.

Clay ran toward the gathering and hunkered down on one knee, looking from the dog to the girl with the soot-streaked face.

“Lady here saved your worthless mutt,” Hershel said.

“You saved Sam?” Clay turned his attention to the rescuer. Her midnight-dark hair was loose and falling over one shoulder. Even though the black streaks on her face melded with the darkness, he recognized her. “Miss Hollis?”

She nodded, turned her head aside and coughed so hard, it sounded downright painful.

“You all right?”

“I’m fine,” she replied with a hoarse voice.

Sam’s breathing didn’t sound so good, but he licked Clay’s hand. Clay studied the smoke and ash rising from the nearly destroyed jail where the firemen were directing the water. He couldn’t turn the thought of Willard DeWeise over in his mind without bile rising in his throat. He glanced at Hershel, and the two men shared an uneasy look.

“Hell of a way to die,” Hershel said with a grimace.

Clay’s gut knotted.

“If you’re talking about your prisoner, he got out,” Miss Hollis croaked.

Clay turned and stared down. “He what?”

“He got out,” she repeated.

All three lawmen turned to listen.

“I—I was—” A racking cough halted her explanation. “I was in the park.”

Her voice was so low and raspy, they knelt to hear.

“The park across from the First Ward School?” Clay asked.

She nodded. “From the corner there I saw the flames. I ran this way. As I got closer, I saw the man you arrested from the lunch counter that day running out the door.” She pointed to the south. “He went that way.”

Clay was relieved to hear the man hadn’t turned to a cinder inside the jail, but the question of how he got out of a locked cell was damned puzzling.

“I heard the dog whining, so I just went in and helped him out.”

Clay and Hershel exchanged another baffled look.

“How the Sam Hill did DeWeise get out of that cell?” Hershel asked aloud.

“Someone had to have unlocked it,” Clay surmised. “One of the deputies.”

They turned and looked at the building. If one of the lawmen was still inside there, he was dead now.

“Account for all the men right now,” Clay ordered the young deputy.

“Yessir.” John Doyle shot away from them.

Miss Hollis attempted to get to her feet, and Clay helped her up with one hand under her arm and one around her slim waist. Her hair smelled like smoke. Few people would have risked their life for a dog’s. “Bet you were sorry you risked your neck once you saw the old mutt,” he said.

She glanced up, but when their eyes met, she looked away. “No.”

Another bout of coughing bent her at the waist.

“I’m takin’ her to Doc Chaney’s,” he told Hershel. “You make sure John reports back so we know if anyone’s missin’.”

“No. I’ll be fine,” the young woman protested.

“Don’t be foolish.” He called to one of the bystanders, “That your wagon? Give us a lift over to the doc’s, will ya?”

He assisted her into the back of the wagon, then settled the dog in. Clay jumped up beside them and nodded for the driver to move the horses forward. “Drive past Doc Chaney’s place on Seventh. Most likely he’s at home.”

Most of the fire was out, but smoke poured into the night sky. The entire ride Clay watched it rise. He wouldn’t have a moment’s peace until all his men were accounted for.

Shortly after Clay turned the bell, the young doctor answered the door. “Evening, Marshal.”

“Doc. Have one of the Harvey Girls out front. The jail’s on fire. She pulled my dog out and now she’s coughin’ mostly. That’s my main concern.”

“Anything coming up when she coughs?”

“Not that I’ve seen.”

“Is she burned?”

“Don’t think so.”

Caleb Chaney turned to the woman who walked up behind him. “The marshal says one of the Harvey Girls breathed in smoke, Ellie.”

“Bring her into the kitchen,” she said immediately. “Don’t waste time taking her to the office.”

Clay was grateful Miss Hollis would be taken care of quickly. “Thank you, ma’am.”

Mrs. Chaney accompanied Clay to the wagon and assisted Miss Hollis up the walk and across the porch.

Inside it smelled like apples and cinnamon. He’d been treated a few times at the man’s office—scrapes on a couple occasions and a bullet wound a year or so ago—but Clay had never been in the doctor’s house before. Doctors earned a hell of a lot more than marshals, he surmised, taking note of the furnishings. Then he remembered Doc Chaney came from a well-to-do ranch family.

The doctor’s wife pulled a rocker toward the kitchen table. “Sit here,” she offered.

Sophie took a seat and the woman lit several oil lamps.

“Can I do anything else, Caleb?” she asked.

“I’m guessing these two could use some water,” he suggested.

“I’m fine, ma’am,” Clay told her. “It’s Miss Hollis needs attention.”

Sophie coughed.

Doc asked her to lean forward. “I’m gonna thump you on the back and see if there’s anything that needs to come up,” he told her.

Sophie nodded.

He used his flattened palm to hit her good and hard a couple of times. The awful sound and the resulting expelled breath gave Clay a lump in his chest. He understood the treatment was for her own good, but he sure didn’t cotton to watching.

Ellie Chaney met his eyes with sympathetic understanding. He looked away and rubbed a hand down his face. He’d feel the same about anyone.

“See if you can drink now,” the doctor told Sophie.

She drank a whole glass of water and wiped her chin with the back of her hand.

Mrs. Chaney soaked a cloth and wrung it out. “Let me wash her up a bit now.”

The young doc backed away, giving his wife room to reach Sophie.

“I think she’s fine,” Caleb told Clay. “Doesn’t seem as though her lungs were affected.”

“She can go home then?”

“Isn’t the dormitory locked by this hour?” Mrs. Chaney asked.

Sophie nodded. The whites of her eyes were reddened. “Past curfew.”

“She can stay here,” the woman suggested. “I’ll take the baby into our room and Miss Hollis can sleep on the cot in the nursery.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Sophie protested.

“What else would you be doing?” the woman asked. “You’re locked out of the dormitory, so you’ll stay here. Caleb and the marshal will explain to Mr. Webb in the morning. I’ll find something for you to wear.”

After a moment, Sophie said, “That’s very kind of you.”

“What do I owe you for your time, Doc?” Clay asked.

“I will pay my own bill.” Sophie’s emphatic objection started another bout of coughing.

“You wouldn’t have had need of the doc if you hadn’t gone into the jail for my dog, Sophie.”

“I made the choice. I’ll pay my own bill.”

He studied the fractious woman, stubborn and proud as all get-out. Even with remaining black smudges on her chin and forehead and her dark hair a disarray of tangles, she was something to look at.

“Let’s not worry about that tonight,” Dr. Chaney interrupted. “Everyone needs some rest.”

“Make yourselves useful and heat some water,” Ellie directed the men. “Sophie needs a bath before I take her upstairs and get her settled.”

Clay helped pump water and heat it on the stove, then he and the doctor walked out to the front porch.

Caleb raised his face to the sky. “There’s still smoke in the air.”

“Better go see what’s left of the jail. Got some figurin’ out to do, I reckon.”

“Don’t worry about Miss Hollis,” Caleb told him. “She’s going to be just fine.”

Clay took a coin from his pocket. “Will a dollar cover it?”

Dr. Chaney closed his fingers around the coin with a grin. “I have a feeling she’s going to be madder’n a hornet when she finds out you paid.”