Deborah Camp (2 page)

“She’s not accusing you of nothing,” the sheriff snarled. “Now stand up so’s she can get a good look at you.”

“What’s this all about?” the other man grumbled, still not moving a muscle to obey.

“Stand up!”

“Sheriff, please,” Zanna complained of the sheriff’s high-pitched squall.

“Sorry, Mrs. Hathaway.” The sheriff pressed his face against the bars and whispered fiercely to the lounging man. “Get your ass up or I’ll fry it for supper.”

The man stared at the menacing sheriff for a few moments before pushing himself to his feet. He didn’t stand erect, but swayed crazily as if he hadn’t the strength to hold his own weight.

“What’s wrong with him?” Zanna asked in a whisper.

“What’s wrong with me is that I’m half-starved and in need of medical attention,” the prisoner said in his raspy voice. Education was clearly stamped in his speech. “I could use a drink, too.”

“You shut your trap,” the sheriff said.

“Why hasn’t he been given food and water?” Zanna asked.

“Because he’ll be out of here tomorrow and on his way to his hanging.”

Zanna set her mouth in a disapproving frown. Barbarous, she thought, but kept the pronouncement to herself as she forced her attention to the wobbly man inside the dirty cell. His clothes looked to have once been finely tailored. His light brown hair was matted and disheveled. By the looks of him it appeared he’d been beaten. Zanna delivered a mean glare to the sheriff before she addressed the prisoner again.

“How old are you?” she asked.

“How old do you want me to be?” he replied with a baleful smile that gave a fleeting glimpse of healthy teeth. A two-inch scar marred his chin, showing white through his whiskers.

“Answer her,” the sheriff squeaked and the prisoner cast him a disdainful glance.

“Thirty-three. Can I sit down now?”

“No.”

“Yes,” Zanna said, countermanding the sheriff, and the convict dropped like a weight onto the wood cot which was covered with straw. “Are you married?”

He whacked the harmonica into his palm to dislodge any spittle. “No, I’m not. Hey, what’s this all about? Are you a census taker?”

“You just answer her questions,” the sheriff warned, then cupped Zanna’s elbow in his hand. “Let’s go, Mrs. Hathaway. You’ve had your look at him.”

“No, wait.” Zanna wrenched her elbow from the sheriff’s hand and moved closer to the iron bars. “Are you of sound mind and body? Are you disease-free?”

He inched his head back and regarded her with ridicule. “If I caught something, I caught it in here.” He turned to the sheriff again. “Why all these questions? Is she loony or something?”

“She is not. She’s a proper lady who shouldn’t be anywhere
near the likes of you.” The sheriff grabbed Zanna’s elbow again. “Now come along, Mrs. Hathaway.”

“Where do you come from? Your accent hails from the South, doesn’t it?” Zanna asked the other man, resisting the sheriff.

“Tennessee, around the Memphis area.” He fit the harmonica to his full lips again and began to blow a sweet tune.

“Mrs. Hathaway,” the sheriff urged, “come this way.”

“He’ll do.” Zanna jerked free again and turned to face the sheriff so there’d be no mistaking her claim. “I’ll take him.”

“You
can’t
take him,” Sheriff Warwick wailed and the stranger stopped playing. “Mrs. Hathaway, use your head. This man is a menace to society. Wait a few weeks and I’ll arrest someone more suitable for you. I can’t let you take him.”

“Take me where?” the prisoner asked.

“None of your business,” the sheriff retorted.

“Please unlock the cell and let me have him,” Zanna said, wanting to escape the smelly jail.

“It doesn’t work like that,” Sheriff Warwick said. “He’s got to agree to this thing, too.”

“Agree to what? What are we talking about?”

Sheriff Warwick placed his hands at his waist and stared gloomily at the dirt floor. After a few moments, he heaved a weary sigh and glared at the prisoner.

“She wants to marry you,” the sheriff said in the softest voice he’d used up to that point.

“Wh-what?” The man’s shoulders slammed back against the wall and his eyes widened until Zanna could see the white all around his hazel irises.

“You’ve got to go along with it or it won’t get done.” The sheriff thrust his head forward. “Do the right thing, boy, and tell her to get on home.”

Grandy Adams gave the woman a lazy-eyed appraisal as his thoughts ran in circles. “What’s your game, ma’am?
You like wearing those widow’s weeds so much that you go around marrying men who only have a few days to live?”

“Sheriff!” A shrill voice cut in on the tense trio, sailing in from the front office.

“Back here, Miss Agatha,” Sheriff Warwick called, then rolled his eyes in exaggeration as his tone returned to a pitiful whine. “What now?”

Miss Agatha Daryrimple, one of Scyene’s eligible maidens, squeezed through the doorway, her round face beaming pinkly and her blond curls bouncing stiffly beneath the brim of her blue bonnet. Her smile turned upside down when she saw Zanna.

“What are you doing here, Suzanna Hathaway?” she asked, her thin lips forming a pout.

“Good morning to you, Miss Agatha. I’m looking at the new convict.”

“Why?”

Zanna arched her auburn brows. “Why do you think?”

“You’re not husband-hunting!” Miss Agatha wailed, her blue eyes growing wide with disbelief. She bustled forward and peered into the cell, then rounded on the sheriff. “I want him.”

“Too late,” Zanna said. “I’ve staked my claim.”

“It’s not fair,” Miss Agatha cried, her blue eyes filling with tears that spilled onto her chubby cheeks. “You married the best man in the county and now you’ve claimed the best prisoner we’ve had in months. I haven’t had a husband yet and I want this one.”

“Now, now, ladies,” the sheriff cut in. “She’s right, Mrs. Hathaway. Why don’t you let this fella marry Miss Agatha?” Sheriff Warwick’s expression was a silent plea to Zanna that she drop her dopey idea and let Agatha Daryrimple marry the surly stranger.

“I’ve already said I want him,” Zanna stated firmly, then turned to the prisoner. “But I’m not going to fight. Let
him
choose between us.”

“Will someone please tell me what the hell is going on?” the convict demanded as he struggled to stand again.

“You simmer down,” the sheriff warned, then tucked his thumbs in his gun belt as he launched into an explanation. “There’s an ordinance in this county that a woman of means can claim a man sentenced to the gallows as long as the man didn’t commit murder or the like. ’Course you’ve gotta go along with the marriage and there’s certain rules like no drinking, gambling, womanizing, or wife beating. It’s like probation and you gotta mind the woman or she can have you throwed back in jail and hanged.”

“No gambling?” the younger man croaked.

“No gambling,” the sheriff confirmed with a lopsided smirk. “Them’s the rules, boy.”

“How come nobody told me about this before now?” the prisoner asked, narrowing his eyes to slits of suspicion.

“Wasn’t any point unless a woman came around to claim you.”

“Are you going to let him choose?” Miss Agatha piped up.

“He hasn’t said he’s for the idea,” the sheriff pointed out.

The prisoner swallowed hard and was none too steady on his feet. He ran a hand across his dry lips, then held on to the bars to keep himself upright. “I’m for it. Living is better than dying, no matter what the rules.”

“Okay, then.” Sheriff Warwick stepped back and extended a hand toward the two women. “Which one will save your filthy neck, boy?”

The disheveled man blinked several times to clear his vision. Fatigue and hunger made him see double and triple. The blond was cute, but overly plump. Her voice was high and grated on his nerves. The other woman’s face was obscured by the black veil, but her voice was melodious.

“Mind lifting that veil so I can have a peek at you?” he asked.

For a moment he thought she meant to refuse him because she made no move to honor his request, then she shifted her beaded purse and lacy parasol to one hand so that she could lift her veil with the other. There was a full measure of drama in her actions that filled Grandy with a delicious sense of anticipation, so much so that he felt his mouth water. As the concealing curtain lifted, Grandy saw a short chin, a full-lipped mouth that bordered on an attractive pout, a retroussé nose, and large shamrock-green eyes. Her face was heart-shaped, wide at the temples and narrow at the chin. Her hair was dark red and her skin was the milky white of Irish ancestry. He wondered if she had inherited an Irish temper as well. She stared at him unflinchingly and he liked that about her. Women who could look strange men in the eye without blushing and giggling were usually bold and brassy—just the way he liked them.

The veil fell abruptly, ending the strange confrontation.

“How old are you?” he asked of her.

“Twenty-six,” she answered without hesitation.

“And you?” he asked, looking to the blond.

“Twenty-three. I’ve never been married, but I can cook and clean and mend. I want lots of children, too.” Miss Agatha smiled sweetly and her eyes slid sideways to Zanna. “
She’s
been married. I’m not one to carry tales, but I’ve heard that she can’t boil water without ruining it.”

“Miss Agatha, there’s no call for bad manners,” the sheriff cautioned and Miss Agatha turned bright pink.

“She’s right,” Zanna said, glancing contemptuously at the tattletale beside her. “I’m a sorry cook, but nobody under my roof goes hungry. There’s plenty of food in my larder.”

“Mine, too,” Miss Agatha chimed in.

He studied the two women carefully as one part of his
mind told him he was dreaming and that he’d awaken soon and find himself facing a hangman’s noose.

“Well, what’ll it be, Adams?” the sheriff asked impatiently.

He looked at the woman in black and could see the sparkle of green behind her veil. “I guess the early bird should get the worm,” he said with a smirk. “No offense, Miss Agatha, but Mrs. Hathaway should get her reward for arriving first.”

Zanna felt as if a weight had been lifted from her shoulders and she was glad the veil concealed her smile of relief.

“Fiddlesticks,” Miss Agatha said, whirling from the others and leaving them in a swish of satin and silk. “It’s not fair. It’s just not fair.”

“There’ll be others, Miss Agatha,” the sheriff called after her. “The next time I’ll make sure you know before anyone else.”

“So get me out of here,” the prisoner said, directing a narrow-eyed glare at the sheriff.

“Mrs. Hathaway, are you sure about this?” the sheriff asked, giving her a last chance to call a halt to the proceedings.

“I’m very sure,” she informed him in a tone that brooked no argument.

The sheriff fumbled with the key ring. “Adams, you’ve got to sign a document agreeing to the rules I set forth, You’ll sign?”

“I’ll sign anything but my own death warrant. Now let me out of this pigsty.”

“Just hold your horses,” the sheriff snapped as he fit a key into the lock. “Don’t try to bolt and run or I’ll shoot you in the back.”

The cell door swung open and the prisoner stumbled out. The sheriff reached out a hand to steady him.

“He’s so weak, he can barely stand,” Zanna said, turning to lead the way from the rancid-smelling jail. “You
should be ashamed, sheriff. No human being should treat another like an animal.”

“Like I said, he was going to die anyway so—”

“Aren’t we all?” Zanna shot back. “We are born to die, sheriff.”

“That’s an uplifting thought,” the younger man said. “I can tell that living with you is going to be more fun than a barrel of monkeys.” He sat down in the first office chair he encountered. “How about a drink to celebrate the impending wedding?”

Zanna turned on him. “Are you a liquor lover?”

“I’m no rummy,” he said, scowling at her. “Water will do me fine. I just need something to wash the sand and dirt out of my mouth.”

“Sheriff, if you’ll be so kind?” Zanna asked sweetly, and the sheriff offered the prisoner a dipper full of well water which he drank down as if it were his last, then finished off three more just like it.

“Sign this,” Sheriff Warwick said, slamming a printed document onto the desk next to the prisoner. “It’s your release papers and your solemn oath to obey the rules set forth.”

The man stared at the parchment, then ran a hand across his eyes.

“Can’t read, huh?” the sheriff asked with a smirk. “I’ll read it for you.”

“I can read it.” The man snatched the paper back from the sheriff. “My vision is blurred, that’s all.” His hazel eyes moved slowly across the lines and his frown deepened as he neared the end of the agreement. “In other words, you want me to live the life of a saint.” He sighed wearily and signed his name to it. “There. All done. Now can we get out of this place?”

“I reckon so. Mrs. Hathaway says that the preacher is—”

“No, we’re not ready for the preacher just yet.” Zanna reached into her beaded purse and withdrew a folded piece
of paper. “I have another agreement I’d like you to sign.” She spread out the paper on the desk and stepped back while he and the sheriff examined it. “My attorney drew it up. It sets forth what’s expected of you at Primrose, and it must be signed by you and witnessed by Sheriff Warwick before I marry you.”

“What’s Primrose?” the man asked, glancing at the sheriff when he picked up the paper to give it a closer examination.

“My ranch.”

“Ranch?” He swallowed hard and closed his eyes as if he were about to faint. “Saints preserve us. A ranch. Why does it have to be a ranch?” The sheriff chuckled at him and he slanted a hateful look up at the grinning lawman. “What’s so blamed funny?”

“This is a mighty good idea, Mrs. Hathaway,” Sheriff Warwick said with another laugh. “It’s right smart to get things in writing so’s there’s no mistaking who’s boss and who ain’t.”

“What does it say?”

“It lists your chores,” Sheriff Warwick said, still laughing under this breath.

“Which are?”

The sheriff took a deep breath before reading from the document, “‘He shall rise at four in the morning, feed the mules, and clean the stable. While they are feeding he is to get the harness ready, which will take him about two hours. Then he is to have breakfast, for which half an hour is allowed.’”