The Lawman's Oklahoma Sweetheart

“And that’d be you now, wouldn’t it? The good sheriff at our disposal.”

“The well-paid sheriff as your inside man,” Clint corrected.

McGraw pinched the edge of his considerable mustache. He played to character with such a sense of drama that Clint couldn’t help but wonder at how much McGraw relished it all. Power did that to some men. Clint had seen it dozens of times in the war. It turned men cruel, brought out the predatory animal hiding under civilized uniforms. “What sort of arrangement do you have in mind, Sheriff?”

“Nothing you can’t afford—if my suspicions are correct. And I’m hardly ever wrong.”

McGraw gave a dark chuckle and stubbed out the last of his cigarette on the rock between them. “I like your confidence. Okay, Thornton, you’re in. By the way, what about the other one? The foreigner’s pretty little sister—Katie-something, isn’t it? She go down with her brother?”

Clint now tasted the bile rising in his throat, and fisted the hand McGraw couldn’t see. “What do you care what happened to Katrine?”

“I found her rather fetchin’, that’s all. Be a shame if the world lost a pretty face just because it was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I’d be sort of sorry.”

He’d be nothing close to sorry. “She wasn’t there. She and Lars had a falling out the other week and she was up in Brave Rock staying with a friend for a few days.”

“How fortunate for her.” McGraw drew the word fortunate out in a way that made Clint’s stomach churn. “I’d hate to have her meet with any kind of accident on account of her knowing...unfortunate facts.”

A protective resolve settled around Clint’s spine, cold and hard and straight as north. He would draw his last breath keeping this snake away from Katrine Brinkerhoff. “She’s of no consequence, McGraw. She doesn’t know what Lars saw and she’ll be no trouble to you.” While it bothered him to do so, he added, “She’s not too bright and her English is worse than Lars’s was anyways.”

“Land sakes,” McGraw snickered, bumping his shoulder to Clint’s like they were barroom buddies. “It weren’t conversation I was looking for anyhow.”

* * *

It smelled like death.

There wasn’t another way to put it. To Katrine, campfires had always smelled of home and cooking and good people gathered against the night. Today the wind blew sour, acrid scents against Katrine’s face as she stood looking at what remained of the home she’d shared with Lars. “Tak Gud,” she whispered, forcing herself to remember no one had died here.

“Pardon?” Sheriff Thornton stood squinting into the wind, his jaw set with a kind of anger she knew he reserved for criminals. Lars had often said, “I’d never want to be an enemy of Sheriff Thornton’s,” and today she could see why. He would stop at nothing to see justice done. She prayed such determination would be enough to keep Lars safe.

Katrine felt her cheeks flush. “I was thanking God for our lives.” As she said the words, they struck her anew. Clint Thornton had reason to be thankful for his life today, too. He had risked his life to save hers. She believed that to be an enormous thing even if he didn’t seem to recognize it. “For all our lives.” That truth—coupled with the secret they now shared—seemed to bind her to the sheriff in unsettling ways.

She walked a mournful circle around the pile of rubble, feeling as though coming here solved nothing. Half of her wanted to run, to look away and never remember the home that had stood here. Another half, equally strong, wanted to claw through the wet, black timbers to find something—anything—worth saving. A wave of fear washed over her as she came across what was left of their front door. Their barred front door.

She gave a small, whispered yelp at the sight, and in seconds Sheriff Thornton dashed over to stand next to her. She heard him swallow hard. “Don’t think about it.”

How was that possible? Threats of harm were an old, evil menace for her, a tie back to a time in her life she tried hard to forget. It seemed unfair that in one single night all the peace she’d fought so hard for had been taken away.

The sheriff reached down and lifted up a curved piece of metal. Katrine recognized it as the decorative iron latch that had been on their door—one of the things Lars had brought from home. It was covered in soot, wet and bent out of shape.

He’d meant it as a hopeful gesture, but it made Katrine recall the terrible moment when she’d realized the door wouldn’t open. The remembered feel of the door refusing to give way sent ice down her spine even now.

He saw her response. “Okay, then talk about it. Don’t swallow it. It won’t help.”

Katrine didn’t want to talk about it, but when he took a bandana out of his pocket, wiped down the latch and handed it to her, it was as if the words burst out. “There is an old Danish superstition that you must leave a window open when someone dies. To give the soul a chance to fly to Heaven. I know faith is stronger than such things, but I thought about it when I knew they had nailed the door shut. I thought, how will my soul fly to Heaven? We had no windows.” The tears, never far from the surface all day, brimmed her eyes again.

“No one died.”

“I keep telling myself that but it is not working.”

“Then keep repeating it. Out loud when you can, in your head when you can’t.” He nodded at her, cueing her words.

“No one is dead.” Her words were wobbly and insufficient.

“No one is dead,” he repeated for her. Katrine found herself stunned by the compassion in his eyes. There were wounds behind those eyes. She could see their shadows before he broke the gaze and turned away.

There was a moment of raw silence until he caught sight of something and walked toward it. “Try thinking of last night this way—you made your own window.”

She wiped her wet lashes to watch him turn over a log with his boot, the recognition hitting her as fierce as the wind: the corner log. He must have tossed it far enough from the cabin when he pulled it out of the wall, for it hadn’t fully burned. When he bent to another, she knew that both logs of her “drafty corner” had somehow survived the fire.

Sheriff Thornton squatted down and inspected the logs. “You should save these,” he said, turning to her as she walked closer. “Build them into your new home.”

Katrine recoiled at the thought. “Why?”

“Lije says the strongest people make peace with their scars. You were brave to fight your way out last night, and you’re being mighty brave to do this now. It’d be good to remember.”

Remember. Was it worth it to remember when all the ashen pieces of home were blowing away in the wind? A black flake of charred wood settled on her hand and she flinched as if it still burned. “I think I might rather forget. Or not. I just do not know.” The tears threatened again.

To her surprise, the sheriff rose and carefully settled the logs on one end, like an odd little row of order in all the destruction. He extended a hand. “Maybe you don’t have to know yet. Lars would want you to see what else can be saved. Maybe it’s more than you think.”

She let him pull her closer to the blackened pile, still smoking in some places. With a tenuous smile, he pulled a pair of gloves from his pocket and began picking through the debris. She watched him for a moment, then began walking around the collapsed house, trying to feel Lars’s encouragement but failing miserably. She spied half a blackened bowl and swallowed hard. The two new bowls brought by neighbors couldn’t really replace it. New wasn’t always better, was it?

“Well now, look here!” Katrine raised her gaze to see Sheriff Thornton holding Lars’s favorite tin coffee mug, the blue enamel still visible under spots of black soot and a considerable dent. He used his glove to wipe away some of the soot. “He’ll want this back, I reckon.”

He said it like a secret. He’d said over and over that this deception was necessary, that it was the best way to keep Lars safe, and Katrine wanted to believe him. Neither Lars nor the sheriff truly knew why this was so hard for her, but that had to stay a secret, as well. She lifted her chin to the sheriff. “I want to see him.”

Thornton came down off the pile and stood in front of her. “You know I can’t do that.”

Katrine felt the urge to stamp her foot in a childish fit. All the pain and loss was boiling up inside of her, and he’d told her not to swallow it, hadn’t he? “You could find a way. Do you know what it is like to sit in your brother’s house and hear people talk of Lars dead? They bring me food and clothes and they cry over my loss. It is awful. I want to run away, but...” She flung out her arms at the mound of ashes in front of her. “I have nowhere to go now, do I?”

“You could build a mansion out here and it’d be no good if men like McGraw are free to take it from you!”

She spun on him. “So it was McGraw!” The shouts from outside the cabin that horrible night clicked in her memory. Lars had hinted that he knew something about the men, but wouldn’t say outright, claiming she was safer not knowing. That hadn’t proved true, had it?

The sheriff kicked a fallen beam. “Hang it, I wasn’t supposed to say.” He pointed at her. “You forget you heard that. You’re in enough of a spot as it is.”

She had to agree with that. “I don’t like the way he looks at me.”

“Well, I don’t either,” he said quickly, then ran his hands down his face as if he hadn’t wanted to admit that. “It’s gonna be fine. I’ll get him. I’m already in with the load of ’em. We just need to get through this part until I have enough proof to put the Black Four away for good.”

“I need to see Lars.” She knew it was pointless, but she couldn’t help saying it. Without hearing Lars’s voice, without looking into the strength of his eyes, she wasn’t sure she could keep up this dangerous game. She waited for Thornton’s temper to rise at her childish insistence.

He sighed instead, walking over to hand her the battered mug. It wasn’t much of a peace offering, but he was trying, she could see that. “How about I take him a message? Write him a note, and I’ll bring you back his reply. Will that help?”

It wasn’t like seeing Lars, but it would have to do. “Yes. Yes, it would help very much.”

Chapter Four

An hour after returning Katrine to Lije’s house, Clint rode out of town toward the Cheyenne reservation. He wandered through the open prairie, following the hunting trails Lars used, deep into the wilderness where only those most familiar with the countryside would venture out. He watched the stones along the path until he began to see piles of three stones—carefully laid so that they looked natural and would not catch the eye of anyone not looking for such clues. When Clint saw three piles close together, he stopped his horse along the series of rocks Lars had marked and gave a long, low whistle. He waited, watching a hawk loop overhead, then gave the same whistle again.