Chapter IX
By Joanna Phillips
Callie squeezed her legs more tightly around her horse and leaned further into his neck, urging him on to greater speed. Stretching her arms so far forward that she felt the sleeve of her satin gown give and a rush of frosty air assault her, she cried again into the wind, desperately trying to escape Rock Creek.
Constant glances over her shoulder had given her a stiff neck, and her teeth chattered. Why she had not grabbed her bag before she left Jimmy in the hallway, she would never know, but it was too late to go back now. Tears filled her eyes and blurred her vision of the trail, until everything blended into one dark streak.
She didn't know where she was going, but it wasn't the Senator she ran from anymore. It was the eyes of the man she'd come to care about, seeing her for what she had become that kept her pushing on so desperately. But Jimmy's image rode right beside her, and no matter how far or how fast she fled him, she knew she wouldn't escape.
*
"Jimmy, do you think it is a good idea for you to be helping those men catch her? I mean, aren't you just a little bit too involved right now to have a clear head over all this?" Kid asked quietly as he urged Katy to trot beside Jimmy's palomino.
"Kid, I didn't ask for any of your worldly advice. Now I know that hasn't stopped you in the past, but this time, I mean it!" Jimmy kicked his horse into a slow lope and pulled ahead of Kid.
"He's almost as hard headed as you when you set your mind to something, Kid," Teaspoon commented from behind him.
Kid shook his head, "Well if I ever decide to help the posse that is hunting down Lou, shoot me."
Cody raised his eyebrows, "Remember that, Buck."
"So, Kid, if you are so convinced that Jimmy shouldn't be here, why are you here? Things would be a whole lot easier for you if you rode back home," Buck pointed out, hiding a grin.
"I just think that Callie needs to face this man, for whatever reason. I don't know if she murdered anyone or not, and I don't know if there is a good explanation. But if the state of Louisiana has enough doubt to think she needs to be tried, then who am I to argue? Besides, I'm here to watch out for Jimmy, just like the rest of you are. And as for Lou, she's not the boss of me!"
Cody and Buck burst out laughing and Teaspoon just shook his head in disagreement, "If you are still stupid enough to think that now, you'll surely be enlightened when you get back!"
Kid glared at them all defiantly, but didn't miss the tightening knot of dread that had started in his stomach when he told Lou he was going and had seen that he did not have her blessing.
*
Lou watched the boys until they had disappeared on the horizon. Then, she turned to run to the bunkhouse and awkwardly unzip her dress, and don a pair of her pants and a thick wool shirt. She then grabbed a loaf of bread from the cabinet, her bedroll, and a canteen. She let herself out into the night.
In the stable, Lightning nickered and moved about restlessly, not understanding why all of his stall mates had been taken out in the middle of the night and he left behind.
"It's all right boy," Lou said softly, "we're just going for a little ride. On our own!"
Lighting felt his owner's urgency, and ran strong and fast. His ground-eating strides covered the trail rapidly as Lou set off in the direction Callie had chosen. Luckily it was the opposite one from where the riders were going to meet the senator. She left Teaspoon's warning of the trouble she'd be in if she helped Callie back in Rock Creek.
Lou rode until her horse was exhausted, and knew that Callie must be nearly killing her pale Arabian to keep such a strong lead. Lou guessed that Callie would kill a hundred horses under her rather than go back to the Senator. Sighing, Lou gave up trying to catch her before sunrise, and made camp. She could only hope that Callie was heading to where Lou thought she was. Lou bundled in the blanket intended for Callie, and started a fire. It offered little warmth, and she couldn't imagine how cold Callie, who had taken nothing with her, must be on this night.
Lou woke before dawn the next morning and quickly saddled her horse up. She started out at a gallop and didn't stop until she reached the box canyon that she prayed Callie had fled to. They'd ridden there on a day trip before and Callie had taken special interest in the caves in the wall of the rocky cliff. They'd gone exploring like children and had laughed at the dirt-streaked face of the other when they burst back into sunlight.
Lou spotted Ghost and quickly tied Lightning up, gathering the things she'd brought for Callie before running toward the caves.
"Callie? It's Lou!" She called out loudly, "And I'm alone!"
There was silence for a moment, then she heard a soft cry, "I-I'm in h-here!"
Lou hurried toward the cave the voice came from and found Callie hunched against the wall, shivering with cold. Her attempts at building a fire had failed, Lou guessed by the unburned pile of kindling.
Lou rushed to the young woman and wrapped the blanket around her, quickly going about starting a fire.
"I never did learn much about surviving the wilderness in finishing school," Callie murmured, and both women laughed nervously. "However, I could set a table in an emergency if I needed to, don't you worry about that!"
"Are you all right?" Lou wondered.
"Yes, I am. Have you come to talk me into turning myself in?" Callie wondered.
"No, Callie, I haven't. Why you are running from him is your business. I know I've made my share of mistakes, and I know what it is like to have no way out. I came to see if there was anything at all I could do to help you."
Callie shook her head sadly, "There is no help for me Lou. He'll find me eventually, and then the only hope I have is death."
Lou shivered at the despair in her voice, then suddenly turned and looked into Callie's violet eyes, seemingly glowing in her pale face. "Maybe we can arrange that," Lou said, and when she saw Callie's alarmed look, she laughed, "I'm not going to kill you, silly. We're just going to let the Senator think you are dead. I'll go find the posse and tell them I rode out to try and talk you into coming back, but that I found you on the trial, and that Ghost and you both had taken a bad fall. I'll tell him both of you were dead. Meanwhile, you can hole up here. The ground is rocky here, so it is almost impossible to track you. They'll assume you kept to the road, because no one but me knows you know where this place is. When the Senator is gone, I'll try and talk some sense into the boys, and then you can stay with us!"
Callie sighed, "Lou, you don't even know about what happened. How do you know I'm not a murderess?"
Lou sighed, "And how do you know I'm not going to turn you back in? You just know, and I just know. I'll ask for an explanation when this is over. Then you can tell all of us. Or not. It's your choice."
Callie shook her head, almost baffled by the blind faith of her feisty friend, but Lou had moved on with her plans. "I brought enough food to last you a few days. And here is a flint to start a fire! There's also extra blankets. You'll be safe here," Lou nodded at Jimmy's silver gun, which rested close to her side, "You know how to use that if you have to?"
"I know the general idea. I can't say I'm much of a marksman, though," Callie said, then thought, If I was, the Senator would be dead and none of this would have happened!
Lou nodded, "You watch yourself Callie! I'll come get you when it's safe. If you should have to leave, then you go North, towards Sand Creek. Wait there."
Callie nodded, then called after Lou, waiting until the small girl looked her in the eye before she spoke, "Cyrus Stevenson is a vicious, ruthless man. He'll do whatever he has to so he gets his way. You watch yourself too, Lou!"
"I always do! I'll be back in a day or two!"
Callie watched with a lump in her throat as the girl disappeared. She suddenly felt very alone.
Jimmy studied the large man in front of him carefully, reading his eyes, his manner, his movement. Cyrus Stevenson was a bear of a man with neatly cropped silver hair and a silver mustache that covered a mouth that was too wide. He had washed out blue eyes that in his youth might have been piercing, but had been dulled by too much drink. He was soft bodied from years spent in luxury, and dressed impeccably. He had a commanding air and an arrogance that Jimmy found almost unbearable. However, he also had a polished charm that made some of Jimmy's original abhorrence fade. He was grateful for the help, and time and time again reminded his new recruits how dangerous their criminal was.
Teaspoon excused himself half way through the day, mumbling something about having business in Rock Creek. He personally vouched for his boys, but couldn't hide his dislike of Cyrus Stevenson. Kid saw the look about Teaspoon and knew he was off to try and find out anything he could about the Senator. This made Kid uneasy. If Teaspoon had a bad feeling about this man, then it was something that they couldn't afford not to give heed to.
Cyrus Stevenson eyed his new recruits carefully, not sure they could be trusted. One in particular kept drawing his attention by his sharp stares. Washburn said that this man, the renowned Wild Bill Hickok, had been the one Callie escaped from. He knew the boy was suspicious of him, and he suspected he had mixed feelings for Callie. He couldn't blame the man. She was bewitching.
Better to keep an eye on all the new ones, he thought. He was too close to Callie to have things fall apart now. Oh, how she would pay, he thought viciously and his hands tightened so on his reins that his knuckles went white.
Lou rode into the station and leapt from Lightning before he came to a complete stop, and almost fell upon her face for all her troubles. She had to hurry and intercept the posse before they found Callie's trail. The clouds looked heavy and laden with rain, and she prayed it would begin soon and wash away the tracks. She ran into the bunkhouse and once again donned her burgundy gown. Washburn had seen her as a lady, and to protect her secret she knew she must remain that way. She struggled to tighten the laces and buttons at the back of the gown, and finally was ready to go.
She picked up her skirts and flew to the stables, finding Jesse there, much to her distress.
He looked at her suspiciously, "Where you going Lou?"
"I don't have time to explain, Jesse. I need you to take care of Lightning and not say anything to anyone about seeing me! This is so important, Jess!"
Jesse's bright blue eyes were troubled, and Lou cringed at the thought of having to entrust him with any secret, especially given his talent for blurting them out. He watched her solemnly as she hitched a quiet mare to a buckboard, and then raised his eyebrows as she struggled with the skirts for a minute while climbing aboard.
"I don't think you should be going anywhere alone, Lou," Jesse began.
"Jesse, I know what I'm doing! And I'll kill you if you say anything to Rachel about this. And when Noah gets back from his run, you just tell him you don't know where I am, understand?"
"Teaspoon said you shouldn't try to help Callie, Lou," Jesse began.
Lou sighed, and knew that the only way to ensure Jesse didn't destroy the plan was to lie to him. "Callie's dead, Jesse," she said somberly, and slapped the reins on the horse's back, trotting from the barn.
Lou didn't have to ride long before she spotted the posse. It was a fairly large group of twenty men, not including the boys. She saw both Kid and Jimmy begin to ride forward to meet her, their faces white with alarm. A huge man at the head of the pack whom she instantly knew to be the Senator began riding forward too, followed by Washburn, Cody, and Buck.
"What's wrong Lou?" Kid called breathlessly, long before he reached the wagon's side.
Lou saw the worry on his face, and then shifted her eyes to Jimmy. She saw such misery there, that for a moment she thought she couldn't go through with the plan. She averted her eyes from both of them, and felt a flush rise in her cheeks. She prayed she'd be able to pull off what she was about to do. She'd never been a very convincing liar.
"To what do we owe the pleasure, Miss?" Cyrus Stevenson asked a note of impatience audible in his polite greeting as he pulled up beside the buckboard.
Lou raised her eyes slowly, and in an instant, tried to ascertain what kind of man sat before her. His voice had the same thick, lilting quality as Callie's. His eyes were a lighter blue than even Kid's. However, they glittered with a hardness unlike any she had ever seen before, save one man, a man she tried daily to forget. His jaw was strong and his teeth well tended, his nose broad and straight. He was, no doubt, a handsome man. But the coldness, the near violent air about him was unmistakable.
"Miss?" He again asked for her name.
Kid instantly noticed she'd grown very red in the cheeks, and he saw the beginnings of fear in her eyes.
"This is Louise McCloud," He offered, "Louise, this is Cyrus Stevenson."
"Ah, the mystery is solved!" Cyrus laughed in a strained manner, and reached for her gloved hand. Lou reluctantly extended it to him, and he pressed his lips to the back of it. None of the riders, nor Stevenson, missed the violent shiver than ran down the length of her spine at the contact.
Kid shifted nervously in the saddle. "What's wrong?" He finally asked.
Lou took a deep breath, and looked the Senator squarely in the eyes, "Am I correct in assuming that you are looking for Callie Sullivan? That you are the man who has so ruthlessly chased her across the territory?"
The Senator narrowed his eyes and gauged the small girl in front of him. The willful set of her jaw and the fire in her eyes made him wary. "I gave chase so ruthlessly as you so delicately put it, only after she murdered her own brother and attempted to do the same to me."
Lou refrained from saying she regretted Callie's failure at the second attempt and instead glanced at Jimmy before continuing. "Well, you finally chased her too far, Mr. Stevenson. She's dead."
Jimmy's head snapped back as he looked at Lou from under the brim of his hat. A terrible pain shot through his middle and left him feeling weak and sick to his stomach. Lou found she could not meet his eyes, and felt pain wash through her as she all but heard Jimmy's heart breaking. As quickly as he raised his head, he lowered it to hide the tears forming in his eyes.
Kid looked more closely at Lou. Her eyes were too wide, her demeanor too calculated. Something wasn't right. He didn't want to say anything, praying to God she had a good reason for whatever it was she was up to, and that she knew this man was not someone to reckon with.
"Dead, you say?" Cyrus wondered, already having been warned of the girl and her objection to the men riding to join with him. Washburn had called her a troublemaker, just like Callie.
"That's what I said. And you call her a murderer!" Lou growled.
"How did our fair Callie meet her end?"
"Her horse took a tumble, I suppose. They both were lying at the bottom of a ravine. There was nothing I could do."
The Senator looked away from the girl's steady brown gaze to his other men. The slightest movement of his head communicated a signal. Satisfied they understood, he turned back to Louise. "That's a lovely thought, my dear. And a clever one. But, of course, I'll need more than that."
"I'll tell you where to see the body for yourself," Lou said quickly, already prepared to send him on a wild goose chase in the opposite direction.
The Senator laughed, and Kid, Cody, and Buck all looked at him in surprise. Jimmy was still too lost in his own misery to notice anything around him. "Ah, that would be a lovely deed! And a wonderful way to divert me and my men. Do you realize that you are standing in the way of due process?"
Lou faintly remembered Callie's scorn at the Senator's idea of "due process." "I am telling you the truth. She is lying in a ravine not fifteen miles South West of here."
The Senator looked at her a moment longer. She was a brave one. In fact, she reminded him of Callie. "It is very fortunate indeed, then, that we ran into you!" The Senator said, and he thought he saw the girl's shoulders sag with relief, thinking her trick had worked.
"You've killed a woman, Sir," Lou said coldly, "I don't imagine that you should feel very fortunate at all."
"Ah, but it is fortunate that we have such a beautiful guide to lead us to the deceased!"
"I want no part in this!" Lou said, "I'll tell you where she is, and you find her yourself!"
"You don't understand!" The Senator said, and with another slight nod of his head his men suddenly closed in and drew their rifles. The boys jumped in surprise as they were roughly relieved of their guns and forced to raise their hands into the air.
Lou jumped for her gun in the velvet handbag beside her, but with one motion Cyrus Stevenson flung out his arm, knocking her across the face and out of the wagon. Kid growled in rage, and he, Jimmy, Buck, and Cody all began to leap for the Senator, but were stopped by rifles shoved under their noses. When Kid still lunged forward, the man guarding him quickly struck him in the temple with his rifle, and he fell to the ground.
Lou gasped and brought a hand to her stinging cheek, quickly struggling to her feet as the Senator nearly rode his horse over her. She jumped from the restless animal's path and glared at him.
"You have no right to hold us here!" She began.
"You are free to go, my dear," The Senator said, then laughed at the confusion on her face, "But heed my advice. You either return here with Callie in two days or I start shooting one of your friends for every additional day she doesn't return. And this young hero here," he motioned to the unconscious Kid, "will be the first!"
"She's dead! Why can't you just let us go?" Lou began.
The Senator reached down to grab her arm and twist it violently, nearly picking her up off the ground as he leaned down until their faces were barely an inch apart. Again, Jimmy, Buck, and Cody started forward and were held back.
"She's not dead, my dear. I know that much. You should have picked any other type of death than an accident on horseback. She's an adept horsewoman! But even if by some chance you do tell the truth, you will bring me her body, and if you do not, I will bring you his!" Again he nodded toward Kid.
Lou's eyes narrowed and she tried to pull away from him. He held her tight, and suddenly fury bubbled through her and took over her common sense as she spit into his face. Reflexively, he struck her to the ground. "It is your choice, my dear!" Cyrus Stevenson said, wiping the girl's spit from his face with a handkerchief that was too white given the dusty surroundings, "I'm proposing a trade. These four for Callie. Fair enough, I wound think."
Lou wrinkled her brow, looking for a way out.
"Well, Miss McCloud, what will it be?"
Lou felt hate for the Senator choke her as she looked to Kid, now moaning slightly as he struggled to come to, and then at Cody, Buck, and Jimmy. There was really no choice to make. They were part of her, and while she was exceptionally fond of Callie, she loved them all more.
"I'll bring you Callie," Lou finally said, her voice barely a whisper.
"I thought you'd see things my way!" The Senator smiled, "Oh, and, sweetheart? Don't think of trying anything funny. If I see you riding in here with anyone other than Callie Sullivan, I'll kill them all on sight!"
Lou shuddered, believing him. "You'll never get away with this!" Lou growled at him.
"Ah, but that's where you are wrong! I get what I want! And your friend Callie is finally about to learn that very important lesson!"
Lou turned to go, and the whole posse watched as she climbed onto the buckboard, tripping several times in her hurry. Many of them snickered at her and none offered her assistance. Just when she would have wheeled and started at a mad pace for Rock Creek to get a fresh horse and find Callie, Cyrus blocked her path, then rode over to her. He reached into the inside pocket of his coat, and withdrew something, concealed in his hand.
Smiling, he reached over and slowly slid it into the front of her gown. She gasped in anger and shock, and pulled back, and again the boys growled and lunged forward. This time Jimmy was knocked to the ground as a result of his refusal to back down. "Don't you touch her!" He screamed in anger, wiping blood from his mouth.
With cheeks flaming in fury and humiliation, Lou reached down into her dress to withdraw the object.
"You give that to Callie," The Senator said, and laughed heartily. "She'll understand."
Lou glanced down into her gloved hand and wrinkled her brow in confusion at the playing card she held in it.
It was the queen of hearts.
To be continued…On to Chapter X
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