Rebellion in the Valley (21 page)

When she looked up, Tobias’ cheeks were
darkened with anger and she did not like what she saw behind his
eyes.

Chapter 25

“I
f
only a person could turn back the hands of time, maybe I could have
prevented some of this from even happening,” Tobias stared out the
parlor room window, his eyes fixated on the flower pot he’d slipped
the love letter under. “All I had to do was keep my eyes open. I
knew in my gut that man was trouble and I did nothing.”

Hailee noticed both his fists were still
clenched.

The Johnson parlor room fell into a silent
domain for a full seven minutes, but she wasn’t about to be the
first one to break that silence, choosing instead to occupy her
father's chair and watch Tobias twitch his fingers every once in a
while as she sipped at her cold tea.

At long last, he folded his arms in front of
his chest and let out another long breath of air. “You won’t allow
me to beat the man senseless – and believe me, I want him alive to
pay for his sins; yet there's another part of me screaming out to
plant the man in the ground the first chance I get.”

Hailee made her way over to the window and
laid a calming hand on his back.

“I want him out of here. We all do. But we
both know you have no intention of killing him, and that isn’t
anything you should even joke about. I don’t know how you plan to
take care of this, Tobias, but I can feel my hair curl every time
the thought occurs to me that if you weren’t around to take care of
it –,” he turned around to pull her close.

“Shhh, don’t even let that idea begin to
drift into your head. I’m here and I won’t let him near you again.
He’s not allowed past the kitchen these days, but if he’s feeling
gutsy enough to have spoken to you in such a vulgar manner, he just
might mosey right on into the dining room when some of the other
men are eating and challenge either me or Richard to toss him out.
I’m pretty sure he knows the situation could get sticky if he
pulled a stunt like that in front of everyone else, so -“

This time it was Hailee who cut off Tobias in
mid-sentence.

“I know,” she mumbled. “You’ll be bringing
meals to me here in the parlor, right? I’ve been kicked out of not
only my barn and kitchen, but now it looks like my own dining room
is off limits.”

“You’re pretty quick,” he teased.

“I’m not amused, Tobias. I’m living in a
nightmare; don’t you see how insane this is getting?” she
mumbled.

He turned his face toward hers and nodded,
acknowledging that he’d not only heard her, but fully agreed. “One
day we’ll be able to look back on all this mess and it will finally
make sense. I promise.”

Because Tobias sensed her shoulders tense and
saw the questioning look in her eyes, he gave his best attempt at
changing the subject.

“I just realized that I still haven’t gotten
around to asking if you liked them,” he found himself blurting out
of nowhere.

“Excuse me?”

He chuckled at the obvious look of confusion
on Hailee’s lips as she struggled for an answer, back-tracking in
her mind to what on earth he could be talking about.

“When I was standing at the window,” he
explained with a tug of his thumb, “I started thinking about the
envelope I left for you. Have you tried on the necklace yet?”

“No, I was hoping you would attach it around
my neck the first time I wore it.”

“You know, the fact occurred to me that I
left afraid to touch you, but with me being home again and Richard
allowing me upstairs to talk in private with you...it almost feels
like we might’ve missed a couple of steps. Are you comfortable with
that?”

“I suppose so; most girls meet their beaus
sort of the same way we did, don't they? Maybe you missed out on
having to ask my father the big question, but then again,” she
thought about it, “you haven't even asked me any big
questions.”

The pair stood toe-to-toe for a moment before
she began relating the way she’d held the chain in her fingers, how
the sunlight flickered off the golden metal, and the way she’d
closed her eyes and imagined that he was there to attach it to her
neck. She also confessed to the man standing in front of her that
she’d read and reread the letter dozens of times.

“I think I have it memorized; I slept with it
under my pillow.” The blue-eyed girl glanced upward until her eyes
found his. “Have you ever written anything else for me?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. Can’t remember if I
have or haven’t.”

She clicked her tongue against her front
teeth and gave him a playful smack on his chest.

“You have! What have you been hiding from
me?”

He shook his head and gave her a gentle scoot
back to her chair.

“Ah, you know I’m not fancy with words,
Hailee. I never even planned to show any of it to you or anything
like that.”

Feeling she'd embarrassed the budding
wordsmith, she decided to leave it alone for the time being.

“Well, alright. But this conversation isn’t
over, mister,” she teased.

He took his place in the chair next to hers,
the one usually occupied by Bruce. Placing both hands behind his
neck and looking at the lodge pole ceiling, Tobias looked
uncomfortable as he chose his words, taking almost too much time
forming his thoughts.

When the girl began to shuffle her feet, he
cleared his throat and allowed his words to float on out.

“I understand this is the single most awkward
thing you will probably ever have to go through in your life, but
you should know the sheriff and his deputy came by earlier and
reminded me of the important role we play in allowing Duffy to trip
himself up.” Before Hailee raised any questions, he interjected
with, “The sheriff now has information that will send Duffy to the
end of Main Street in Canon City for a very long time, but he needs
to allow Duffy to expose himself.”

Her face now full of concern instead of the
playful look she’d been wearing only moments ago, the young woman
felt an audible gasp creep from her lips.

“Are you saying he’s going to prison?”

”I can’t tell you anything else – I wasn’t
even supposed to say that much to you. And no,” he assured her,
“nobody else but Richard knows about this new development. Hailee,
you are not to talk to him about it, either. You never heard any of
this.”

She could see the firm look in his eyes and
understood that it was not a suggestion or a request.

“It doesn’t make sense. I know you say it
will one day, and I trust you, Tobias, I really do. But this will
never make sense to me.”

“Don’t lose trust in me, Hailee. I need you
to stay as strong as you can until this whole mess is taken care
of.”

“Mess. That’s what it is alright.” She fell
silent for a few seconds before asking in a clear voice, “Tobias,
if I promise to accept the fact that you and Richard and the doctor
and the even the sheriff,” she paused for breath, “didn’t think it
would be in my best interest to see my daddy, would you please at
least tell me where you buried the man so I can visit him
sometimes? And why can’t we just have a remembering service in his
honor at the church? Can’t we at least do that much for him?”

Tobias pulled a hand across his face.

“I know you’re right. Bruce deserves that
much,” he said in between a long exhale of breath. “It’s just that
I’ve never had to deal with anything like this, Hailee. I’ve never
had anyone else to take care of, never had to make these kinds of
decisions before. I don’t mind confessing I have no idea what I’m
even doing half the time. Let's plan some kind of good-bye service
tomorrow.”

She nodded in an apologetic way. “You know, I
feel bad now. I’ve been so busy feeling sorry for myself and been
so buried in my own sorrow, I guess I never even stopped to
consider how this must have affected you. And the others. You were
actually there when – it – happened. It must have been just
awful.”

“And I wish Duffy would just straighten out,
too,” Hailee said in her innocence. “How could a man allow so much
hatred to creep into his heart, Tobias? It almost makes me feel
like he hates me personally or something, the way he looks at me
and the way he talks to me now.”

Tobias shook his head.

“I don’t think it’s so much a hatred for you
or for your family as it is a sheer hatred for his own self,
Hailee. All I know for sure is that man has not looked happy for a
mighty long time.”

Chapter 26

A
s
one hand held a steady match at the top of his oil lantern, the
other hand adjusted the wick. The room filled with shadows and
Duffy turned the glow down just a tad. He was in a mood.

Dang Tobias and the dog that dragged him
in!

With a firm kick, he shoved his boots into a
corner of the room; if he even heard the thud one of them made, he
paid no mind to whatever it knocked into.

Scooting the old brown chair across the dirty
wooden floor and closer to the fireplace, the legs left a trail to
mark their journey a few feet away.

Crackling warm reflections against his face,
the man with the tightened jaw held his hands up against the heat,
turning them at regular intervals and mumbling something about
getting even with the man he'd grown to hate more every day.

Duffy allowed his eyes to glance around the
one-room bunking quarters; they had grown dirty over the past
couple of months. Only three days had passed since he'd begun to
open a window and at least air the place out some, but when he
allowed himself to think matters over, he remembered all the
resentment he’d harbored for Bruce and the thought of keeping such
a small house tidy didn’t seem to matter much after that. The
window slid back down against the sill and that was that.

“This isn’t my house,” he reassured himself
out in the open. “Not this one, anyhow,” he grinned with
satisfaction. “Now, the big house? One day I’ll be living in the
big house!”

It had been near to a couple of weeks now
since he’d seen the girl, and it wasn’t sitting well with him; he
would have to figure out a way to flush her out of there.

“'Course,” he rolled his eyes, “she'll go and
tattle to her boyfriend and stir up the gravy with him.”

Duffy reached down to his feet and picked up
a pine cone, rubbed his fingers absent-mindedly across the thorny
sections and tossed it into the flames, watching as it caught up in
the burning mass and sputtered in a dark orange glow. His head
snapped up and he let out a soft chuckle, as if an idea had just
popped into his head.

“He thinks he can keep her hid in that house,
but that won’t last forever. She’s bound to come on out of there
sooner or later,” he said to nobody. “Another week goes by and
she’s gonna be chomping at the bit to get to that horse of hers.
And when she does,” he chuckled, “I’ll be there. Waiting.”

P

Doc Amerley's office occupied only two people
that evening: himself and the sheriff.

“The thing is, I remember when folks
considered him a rather nice fella; didn't need to worry about him
ever causing a disturbance back then.”

The sheriff nodded his agreement.

“I'll tell ya the truth, Doc. I'm not
planning on taking any pleasure in the next few days; the
law-abiding man part of me knows what has to be done, and then
there's the other part of me that's still trying to deny the whole
thing. I've turned that saddle over and over a dozen or more times
and Tobias is right,” he blew out a concerned breath. “That cinch
strap didn't snap on its own.”

“And the saddle belongs to Tobias himself,”
the doctor added. “He used it just the day before with not one
problem. Obviously that saddle had been tampered with sometime
between going to sleep and waking up; the question remains: how to
prove Duffy's hand did the doing.”

“Howard was the first man awake that morning.
He admitted before the entire group of men he had been the one who
saddled up not only his own horse, but also Bruce and Tobias'
horses. Somehow he must have slapped the wrong saddle on the wrong
horse, it's the only explanation we can come up with.”

The sheriff ran a hand through his thinning
head of hair, scratched the top of his head and replaced his hat
before glancing over to the doctor.

“Why do you reckon Howard would do this to
Tobias? Why would the man attempt to stage his accidental demise?
You know about any problems between those two?”

Doc Amerley shut one eye, tilted his head at
the sheriff and lowered his head a tad.

“We've been over this. Neither one of us have
ever heard a bad word on Tobias; especially after getting an earful
of what Richard reported the other hands told him...don't sound to
me like Duffy's been in good sorts for a while now. Who's to say
what's going on inside that head of his?”

Shaking his head, the lawman's forehead
bunched up some.

“But to straight out just plan on killing a
man? Seems like a fella would at least have the smarts to make sure
he was doing in the right man!”

“Seems like,” Doctor Amerley nodded. “Bruce
sure wound up on the wrong end of the plan, though, didn't he? I'll
tell you what. I'll never be able to shake the image of my good
friend all banged up and bleeding. Do you have any idea what all it
did to my insides when I had to remove that branch out from his
leg? 'Bout tore me up, is what it did. And that little girl up on
that hill,” he hiked a thumb in the general direction of the Red
Bone, “she sure didn't deserve any of this! Not a lick of it.”

The men shared a deepening silence in the
room while they each processed their own thoughts; more than just
the law had become involved here. Emotions ran strong with this
one.