Texas Angel, 2-in-1 (57 page)

He’d like to exorcise it from his brain, but no matter how much he tried to forget, a sneaky little verse would invade his mind at the most inopportune moment before he had a chance to do anything about it.

At any rate, Micah was headed for the fire for certain now. He wished he didn’t believe in heaven and hell. Well, he wasn’t so sure about heaven, but he knew without a doubt there was a hell. He’d lived in it for years now.

CHAPTER

7

S
OUNDS OUT IN THE CORRIDOR
captured Micah’s attention. He’d just had supper, so it couldn’t be that. Maybe a new tenant was arriving. The distinct sound of a key in a lock proved this was probably true. Then a door opened with a groan and a moment later creaked shut again.

Footsteps thudded in the corridor again, and then there was silence.

“Micah, you there?” came Jed’s voice.

Micah jumped from his cot and with a single stride, though limping slightly on his one bare foot, went to his cell door.

“Jed? You okay?” he called out the small barred opening in the door.

“Yeah. My arm pains me still, but my head feels better.”

Micah hated to admit how good it was to hear a friendly voice and to know this particular friend was all right. Funny, but he hadn’t given near as much thought to Harvey or Joe.

“You break your arm or something?” Micah asked, just to keep up the welcome flow of conversation.

“Don’t know for certain. The doctor said he had to ‘locate’ it. But I could see my arm was there the entire time. Don’t know what he meant.”

Micah could almost picture his friend’s bemused look.

“But that locating business hurt worse than that time I sat on a cactus! The doc liquored me up good but still I about passed out. Now he’s got it all trussed up in a sling. Said it’d be better in a few days.”

“Glad to hear that, Jed. Did you hear about anything else? Did they bring in Harvey and Joe?”

“Not as I know of.”

There was a long pause. Micah tried to think of another topic for discussion but could think of nothing besides their fate, and he didn’t really want to consider that at the moment.

It was Jed who brought it up. “What’s gonna happen to us now, Micah?”

“I was told we’d stand before a judge soon, but they didn’t say nothing else.”

“What about that fella you seemed to know? Maybe he’ll get us out.”

Micah shook his head as if Jed could see. “Don’t know.”

“He came to see me at the doc’s. Just to see if I was okay. Maybe he’ll help us.”

The hopefulness in Jed’s voice was a little pathetic, even desperate. Micah cursed himself, as he had done continuously since his arrest, for getting Jed involved.

“I told him how you were a good man, and how you wouldn’t have got caught ’cept that you came back for me. Maybe it’ll help.”

“Maybe.” Micah spoke tonelessly, knowing even that much was a dream.

“Micah?”

“Yeah, Jed?”

“Why’d you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Why’d you come back for me? You told me it’d be a stupid, dumb thing to do—”

“Well, I never said I was any smarter than you!”

“You’re lots smarter,” Jed replied so matter-of-factly that it made Micah’s stomach clench. He knew Jed practically worshiped him, and he hated it. Hated the burden of responsibility, hated knowing it was the most misplaced worship ever bestowed upon a miserable creature.

Micah returned to his cot and plopped down, making the flimsy wooden structure creak and sway. “I want to get some shut-eye, ” he said. “It’s late.”

In the morning Micah and Jed were brought before the town magistrate. Because the evidence was overwhelmingly against them, they were easily convicted of horse thieving and sentenced to hang. Jed cried. Micah stood like a stone, not even blinking at the words of the judge. When the execution was scheduled to take place in three days, Micah’s stomach quivered, but no one could see that.

Back in his cell he killed a couple more cockroaches, and when the midday meal came, he ate every scrap of it, though his insides felt like a big knot. He’d give no man the satisfaction of seeing him regret anything about his life.

Jed tried to talk to him, but Micah answered tersely, then told his friend to shut up. It was cruel, because he knew Jed was scared and needed to talk about it. But Micah was scared, too, and he needed to be silent. Despite the fact that he’d always suspected his end would come in this manner, he’d believed it would wait a few years. He wasn’t even going to see his twenty-first birthday in a few weeks. But he was not going to whimper about the thing. What was done was done. He’d accept it like a man, and when the moment came . . . well, he just hoped he’d be able to take that like a man, too.

He’d chosen his path a long time ago. Maybe not consciously, but he’d always known he would take whatever route was the exact opposite of his father’s. He had made that decision one dark night as he sat by a campfire and watched his mother die. No one had said much to him, and certainly no one had explained why he and his sisters found themselves many miles from home with their uncle and their mother, but not with their father. No one had
said
their father had driven them away. No one had
said
his mother was dying because she had chosen to travel in a delicate condition instead of enduring another moment with that monster Micah must call “Father.”

No one said anything.

But Micah was twelve years old at the time, and he perceived far more than anyone had given him credit for. He knew his mother had been a long-suffering saint while his father was demanding, harsh, self-righteous. And when his mother had breathed her last, Micah had silently sworn to himself that he would hate his father and all that he stood for as long as he lived.

He had never thought his father would outlive him. In a way, though, that was rather a sweet irony. At least it gave Micah a small satisfaction in his inglorious death. For that religious hypocrite to know his son had hung for horse-stealing, well, there was a certain beauty in that.

Footsteps in the corridor intruded into Micah’s grim musings. Glancing at the small barred window high up near the ceiling on the wall opposite of where he lay, he saw it was full dark out, and he had not even noticed the growing darkness in his cell. He did not move from his cot even when he heard a key twist in the lock of his door, nor did he glance toward the door.

“Micah, you ain’t asleep, are you?”

The voice belonged to Tom Fife. He was holding a lighted candle that illuminated his face in an eerie orange glow.

Micah only grunted in reply.

Fife stepped around so as to see Micah better, and probably so Micah, who remained still, could see him.

“I’d like a word with you, if I might.” He set the candle on the table near the cot.

“I’m locked in here. I don’t got a choice,” Micah muttered.

“True . . .” Fife drew out the word as he laced his fingers through his beard. “I got a proposition for you.”

Micah’s eyes, almost against his will, flickered toward the ranger. He hated demonstrating even the slightest interest or curiosity. But “propositions” for a man in his position couldn’t mean too many things. More’n likely they wanted him to give up Harvey and Joe in exchange for some concession. But Micah had never yet said so much as a word about the others. And he wouldn’t either.

“Make it fast, Tom,” Micah said as if he didn’t care. “It’s late, and I want some sleep.”

“Well, since your sentencing today, I been talking myself blue in the face trying to get you some kind of lighter sentence. I just been two hours with Captain Hays trying to convince him you are worth saving—”

“Sorry you wasted your breath, Tom.”

“It wasn’t wasted.”

Micah’s heart did a double beat. What did that mean? Was he going to get off? No way would he turn in his friends. He said nothing, however, continuing with his stoic indifference.

“Why, you knuckleheaded, impudent, thick-skulled, addlepated, foolish little brat!” Fife suddenly raved.

This forced Micah’s attention. Fife’s face was turning beet red, his fists were clenched, and he looked about two breaths away from murder. In fact, in the next instant Fife’s fists swung into motion and grabbed Micah’s shirtfront, dragging Micah into a sitting position.

“You ornery little twit!” Fife continued to yell. “I know you got better manners than that. You look at me when I talk to you!”

Micah licked his lips. He was thirsty, that’s all. But his eyes shot up to meet Fife’s fiery gaze. “Calm yourself, Tom,” he said in a tone barely above a squeak.

“Do you realize you are gonna die in three days, boy? Is that what you want?”

Tom’s gaze bore into Micah like a knife, only this hurt far worse than a stab with any blade. Though his gaze was sharp and furious, there was no hatred in it. Though the man’s voice shook, it was filled with something that finally penetrated Micah’s senses. Tom Fife was scared. Scared for Micah.

“N-no.” That realization made Micah’s voice tremble. And, God help him, moisture rose in his eyes. He turned his face away. He didn’t care if Tom smacked him. He couldn’t let the man see him cry.

“Boy?” Fife said softly, loosening his grip on Micah’s shirt.

“I ain’t a boy no more.” Micah wiped a sleeve across his face, eyes still averted from the ranger’s.

“I want to help you.”

“I won’t give away any of my friends.”

“Didn’t think you would. And I never thought to ask.” Fife sat on the foot of the cot. “You want to hear my proposition?”

Micah swallowed and blinked back the brimming moisture. Then he nodded. He supposed it wouldn’t hurt to listen. He really didn’t want to die.

“Well, I convinced Captain Hays that in view of your tender years—”

“I said I ain’t no boy—”

Tom held up his hand. “I know . . . I know. But it wouldn’t be so bad to be thought a kid if it’d save your life, now, would it?” Without giving Micah a chance to respond, he went on. “Besides, I think he was more impressed when I told him you was also a hero of San Jacinto. He wondered why you was stealing horses instead of working your land allotment. I wonder the same thing. What happened to your land grants? You should have got six hundred forty acres, and another six hundred forty as your uncle’s heir. That could have set you up real good, Micah.”

“Are you gonna lecture me, or are you gonna tell me about this all-important proposition of yours?” Micah asked, risking only a mild sneer in his voice.

“All right.” Tom sighed resignedly. “Captain Hays figures that maybe you deserve another chance. He’s prepared to release you into my custody for a probationary period of one year, during which you will serve the Republic of Texas as a ranger. If you conduct yourself in an honorable manner in that time, he reckons to commute your sentence.”

Micah stared, disbelieving. All he could manage to say was “A ranger?”

“That’s right.”

“A lawman?”

“Not exactly . . .” Tom scratched his head. “But close enough.”

“You mean to tell me that this here captain of yours is willing to take a thief and make him into a lawman? Don’t make no sense. . . .”

Micah leaned against the wall, shaking his head. “No sense at all.”

“I spoke up for you, Micah.”

“What’d you tell him? You don’t know me.” He studied the ranger more carefully. Tom was looking at him, but what did he see? A frightened kid clinging to his mother’s skirts, ripped from the home he loved and forced to endure hardships of a life in a rough, strange land? Or perhaps a boy smeared with gunpowder and blood and the stench of death, fighting battles meant for men? He surely did not see the man Micah had become: at best, a thief; at worst, well, at worst a man who did deserve to hang.

“It has been a long time,” Fife admitted. “But I’m willing to take that risk.”

“Why?”

“I seen lots of men in my time, Micah. And I know when a man’s bad to the core, and you ain’t one of those. Leastways, I’m willing to stake my reputation on it. Now, are you gonna accept my proposition or not? You ain’t got a lot of time.”

“What about Jed?”

“Huh?”

Micah jerked his head toward the next cell. “My friend. He get the same proposition?”

“Aw, now Micah, it’d be pushing it mightily just to get it for you.” Tom lurched to his feet and paced across the cell. “We can’t be letting every horse thief loose.”

“What about Jed’s tender years? ’Sides, he’s even younger than he looks. His mind ain’t quite all there, you know.”

“I thought maybe he was a mite slow.”

“And he don’t deserve to hang, even more than me.”

Tom turned and faced Micah. “The captain won’t go for it.” He chewed his mustache and shook his head. “I’m truly sorry.”

“Don’t matter,” Micah said imperturbably. “I wasn’t gonna take your offer anyway. I don’t want to be a ranger.”

As Tom left the cell, Micah experienced a twinge of regret. This rangering business might not be too bad. In fact, it might offer him all the excitement and adventure he’d found riding with Harvey Tate without the constant threat of, well, of where he was right now. He’d heard of the exploits of the rangers since they had been officially recruited just after the war. They mostly fought Indians and Mexicans, protecting the borders of the new republic. Imagine that! He’d be able to fight all the Mexicans he wanted, and it would be perfectly legal.

But there was no way he’d let Jed hang alone. It was his fault Jed was in this position, and Micah might be a lot of unsavory things, but he wasn’t the kind to desert his friends.

CHAPTER

8

T
WO UNEXPECTED VISITORS CAME TO
see Micah the day before his hanging. He was eating his midday meal when the first one arrived. He wasn’t much interested in the beans on the tin plate and the hunk of bread. He and Jed had had lengthy discussions that morning about food because they had been told that for supper they’d be able to have anything they wanted since it would be their last meal. Jed couldn’t decide between ham and fried chicken. He was very definite about what he wanted for dessert—pecan pie. And not just a slice, but the whole thing!