Blessing

“I’m going to be the dead,” Aaron said. “This is about the last chance to make noise I’ve got. I need to write a letter.”

The old guy shook his head. “Can’t help you. Marshal left me in charge here. Don’t have any paper for you to write on, and I can’t leave. How do I know you’re not trying to escape?”

“I can’t very well escape,” Aaron said dryly. “I’m in a jail cell.”

“You’re the first one we’ve ever had locked up in here. I’m not about to let you get away.”

“I have stationery and writing supplies with my belongings at the Grand Central Hotel. If you could just send someone, Mr.—”

“Pearsall. Ben Pearsall. Can’t do it. Ain’t anybody around to send. You’ll have to find somebody to get your stuff and post it for you tomorrow. The mail only comes in and out on Mondays and Thursdays.”

Aaron sat down on the creaky cot, defeated once more. Things sure hadn’t gone his way these past few days. He didn’t know anybody in town who he’d trust to go through his room and retrieve his belongings.

Ben Pearsall pulled up a stool and straddled it, apparently pleased to have somebody to talk to in the wee hours of the morning. “You know, you’re crazy,” he told Aaron. “The reason everybody turned out at the election down at Pettengill’s Drug Store and voted for Olney for marshal was because he told them he wouldn’t arrest anybody. Olney’s said all along the marshal’s duty is to give the town the appearance of law and order. The mayor told him the day he got his star that the first person he arrested would be his last. And that’s you, Mr. Brown. Olney didn’t have much of a choice, since he was the one you were holding a gun on.”

Aaron looked sour. “I guess not. I guess me and Uley Kirkland didn’t leave him much of a choice at all.”

“Uley Kirkland,” Ben said. “Now there’s a fine young man for you. But I can’t figure out why that kid ain’t started growin’ whiskers yet. You ever seen Uley’s skin close up? It’s as soft as a baby’s. ’Course, I imagine Uley would slug me senseless if he ever heard me say that.”

“Yeah,” Aaron said, unconsciously rubbing his elbow. She’d jumped on him like a wildcat and knocked him to the ground, and parts of his body were still smarting from it. “I reckon Uley would.”

Pearsall scooted the stool backward. “Got to get back up front. Wouldn’t want anybody to think I was talking all night to a criminal.” He tipped his hat. “Been nice conversing with you, Brown.”

Aaron sat down hard on his cot. Why didn’t Uley grow whiskers, indeed! It would be easier for a dog to turn into a horse than it would be for Uley Kirkland to grow whiskers. And, as he thought of her, he realized who could go through his belongings and retrieve his stationery from the Grand Central. Beth would have her letter, after all!

Aaron knew he probably couldn’t trust Uley. He also knew he could make her do his bidding. He knew the word for it. A bad, dark word. Blackmail. But just now he didn’t have any other options. “Pearsall!” he hollered, banging on the bars again. “Get in here, will you? I know who I can send to get my things.”

* * *

Uley received his message just after she arrived at the Gold Cup. “Uley! Uley Kirkland!” Charlie Hastings came shouting into shaft eleven, wagging a lantern back and forth, sending waves of light sweeping along the walls. “Old Ben Pearsall’s here with a note from the marshal. Olney wants you to get down to the jail for something.”

Uley groaned. There had been times during the past two days when she’d wished she’d just kept walking and let Aaron Brown go after Harris Olney. She was fast becoming a celebrity in Tin Cup, and it didn’t suit her one bit.

She left the mine astraddle her bay gelding. She gave the horse his head, letting the animal pick his way down the rocks on the steep hill while she fumed. When she got to town, she looped the horse’s bridle over the hitching rail and marched into Olney’s office. “What do you want with me, Harris?”

Olney waved toward the back. “I don’t want anything, Uley. Prisoner sent for you. I wouldn’t have called you out of the mine, but he says he’s got to see you today. Go on back.”

She stomped on through, and there sat Aaron Brown, all alone behind the bars, his head bowed as if in prayer. “I’m going to lose three dollars today because you won’t let me get in a decent day’s work,” she said.

He lifted his head, and his blue eyes were like deep, sparkling water. She figured he probably hadn’t slept all night. He looked awful. If she weren’t feeling so put-upon, she might even have been sad for him this morning. “You’re the only person I know in this place, Uley. I need somebody to help me.”

“I’m not likely to help you. I’m the one who saw you pull the gun on Olney. I’m the chief witness against you.”

“I’m not looking for a lifelong buddy,” he said tersely. “I’m just looking for an acquaintance who’ll go up to the Grand Central and bring me some stationery. I’ve got to write a letter to one person before they string me up. Old Ben Pearsall told me the mail goes out today.”

“This is why you called me down from the mine?” She was torn between being furious with him and feeling halfway important because he’d needed her. This was his dying request, after all. Maybe it was an important letter. Maybe it was a letter to the governor to confess his crime.

“Yeah. I tried to get Pearsall to go, but he wouldn’t do it. You’re my only hope, Uley. Will you go?”

She eyed him. “I don’t know.” He stood there, grasping the bars with both hands. They were big hands and, looking at him, she wondered how she’d gotten him to the ground.

“Why?” he asked.

His robin’s-egg-blue eyes seemed twice as blue with his face so dirty.

She didn’t know exactly why it happened. Maybe it was because Aaron Brown knew she was a female. Maybe it was because she’d considered her femininity so much during these past days. Whatever the reason, she felt herself blush, felt a spreading burst of heat fan her face the way flame spreads in a forest. “I don’t think it would be right, Mr. Brown. Me going through your personal things.”

“Uley Kirkland!” He hit the bars with his open hand. “Don’t you go all prim and proper on me now. You’re the one who pounced on me out of nowhere and left me sprawled in the dirt. You’re the one that’s got every poor depraved male in this town thinking you’re one of them.”

“You hush up, Mr. Brown.” Her face turned even redder. “You mustn’t say that.”

“Oh, mustn’t I?”

“No.”

He took a deep breath. “You leave me no choice. I’ve got to blackmail you, Miss Uley Kirkland. I’ll tell them all. I’ll tell every single one of them that you’ve had them duped.”

Uley grabbed the bars with both hands. “You wouldn’t do such a thing.”

He brought his nose level with hers. “I might. Because I’m desperate enough to do anything.”

“I would never forgive you.”

“Doesn’t matter. I’m gonna be dead on Wednesday. Doesn’t matter one bit how long you hold a grudge. I won’t be around to enjoy it.”

She saw he had her backed up into a corner. “You promised me. You’re a liar.”

“That isn’t the worst of my sins, if you’ll recall. But you’re right. I’ll confess—” he added the rest for emphasis “—ma’am.”

“Hush up,” she said, lowering her voice. “Somebody might hear you.”

“Does that mean you’ll do it?”

They stared at each other, the silence ticking away between them.

Aaron didn’t let up. Desperation ruled him now. “Get down there, Uley. The stage leaves for St. Elmo in two hours.”

She collected her wits. She had no choice but to do his bidding. With head held high, she sauntered out to the front office, where Harris and George Willis had their heads together, discussing the pretty Tin Can Laura, the hurdy-gurdy girl who kept her money stashed in a tin can. Uley walked up Grand Avenue to the Grand Central to tell D. J. Mawherter exactly what she wanted.

The hotel proprietor didn’t even hesitate before he handed her the key. “You tell Harris Olney somebody’s got to be responsible for that criminal’s room,” he hollered as she started up the stairs. “You tell Harris to bring that man down here to settle up before they hang him Wednesday. I can’t get any gold out of a dead man.”

She hurried up the steps to the second floor, thinking, If he dies, I’ll be halfway responsible for it.

No, she argued with herself. Aaron Brown is responsible for it. One hundred percent totally responsible for his choices. Just the way I’m responsible for mine.

She found the room, unlocked the door and stepped inside. In a tiny room with pine walls and no plaster stood an iron bed, a rickety bureau that looked as if someone who should have known better had tried to build it, and a washbasin. Mr. Aaron Brown’s satchel waited in the corner. She heaved it up and began to unfasten it, feeling more and more uneasy and curious as his private items began to tumble out onto the quilt.

He owned a beautiful black suit and a bolo tie made of leather and elkhorn. He owned two stiff-as-a-board starched shirts and several pairs of woolen socks. And—oh, goodness—he possessed white drawers just like her pa’s.