Threads of Change (30 page)

“Grandpa! You about scared the life out of me,” she exclaimed, holding the broom handle like a weapon.

Grandpa Lucas raised his hands in surrender. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Didn’t mean to frighten you. Heard you two had a scare this morning!” Lucas placed a hand on his granddaughter’s shoulder and looked into her eyes. “When you leave tonight, I’ll come over and help you lock up. We don’t need to be taking any chances. The others will be around soon and we’ll see what Tex has to say. Seems they already had the acquaintance of the Rangers. Tex will know if they’re trouble or not. Think I’ll talk to Parker about some sort of nightly guard duty until we iron a few things out.”

Liz listened and understood, nodding her head in agreement. She started to sweep the top step, thinking that her grandfather was finished.

Lucas paused. “Heard I got one granddaughter married off today.”

Liz stopped sweeping, remembering what Megan had said earlier about Jackson.

“How does it look for the other one?”

Liz sat on the step and released a bewildered sigh. “I don’t know. I seem to have a problem communicating with Thomas. I don’t mean to cause him so much pain. He just always expects me to do things his way. He’s so good to me, sweet and kind, Grandpa. But he just has an opinion about
everything
. Sometimes I think the only way we can get along is for me to keep my mouth shut.”

Her grandfather plunked down to the step beside her. “That must be rough, him having an opinion on everything that way.”

She glared at him, understanding the unspoken jab beneath what he’d said.

“I’m not supposed to have my own opinions then?”

“Liz, you’re both adults, you will find a way. Marry Thomas and have fun figuring it out. Don’t waste precious time. Every day is a gift from God. You know that. I wish I had one more day with your grandmother.” He was quiet for a moment. “Do you think you can grow to love Thomas?”

“Yes, I do. Grandpa, he asked me to put the quilt he gave me as a gift out on the chair on the back porch if I wanted to marry him. But I overslept. And when I realized he rode away and didn’t see the quilt, I … I knew then how much I care for him.”

“Then, for goodness sakes, marry the man as soon as he returns.”

Lucas gave her a quick hug as he stood to go. “See you at closing time.”

Liz silently thanked the Lord for such a loving relationship with her grandfather. Her best memories involved figuring life out with him. She would never forget all the advice he gave her while sitting out on the steps of the old porch back in Lecompte.

Liz’s afternoon didn’t ease up after the frightening incident. Thankfully though, the busy day helped push away thoughts of Thomas and the quilt, the men being away, and how afraid she had been. Each time the bell on the door jingled with a customer’s arrival, Liz gladly looked up to see who it was. Before she knew it, the time had arrived to close the store. She pulled the wooden stool up to the register counter and went through the day’s transactions, entering them into the ledger.

She drew a line at the bottom of the sheet as she completed the final bookkeeping and suppressed a squeal. It had been their most prosperous day so far! The order book had three pages of necessary supplies. A smile formed on her lips as she thought back to Fanny’s new stove and how proud her husband had been to order it for his wife. Liz enjoyed being part of the secret. It made her feel closer to the people of Fort Worth somehow. Liz looked to the door, wondering when her grandfather would return. She wanted to tell him about the sales for the day and to find out about the next freight wagon. She flipped the pencil back and forth in her slender fingers.

The sun sinking beyond the side window signaled that the workday had officially ended. She closed her accounting ledger and placed it below the shelf next to her pistol. A copper-colored bag with a drawstring at the top would hold the day’s profits. She thought to herself how Lucas really needed to build them a vault soon, since Fort Worth didn’t have a bank and the closest one was quite a distance away.

As she tossed the bag full of coins and bills next to the ledger and the gun, she realized that the front door still remained unlocked. The clock chimed, and Liz expected her grandfather at any moment. Her view of the house out back was obstructed from where she stood; if her grandfather was coming across the way, she didn’t see him.

Just as she reached out to turn the lock on the red doors, the two filthy men from earlier pushed their way in and pressed a long gun barrel into her ribs. Liz fell backward and landed on a pickle barrel. The skinny man who had stood out front grabbed her by the chin with one hand and squeezed her face so hard that her teeth cut into her cheek. She could barely breathe.

W
here’s the money?” the man growled at Liz as he leaned down, applying more pressure. His foul breath assailed her nostrils, but she couldn’t turn away. The tall, thin man squeezed harder and shook her head as if the answer would tumble out of her open mouth. The larger one kicked the door shut and moved closer.

“This one’s different,” he said, bearing down upon her with his bloodshot eyes.

The way he looked at Liz made her feel as if she had nothing on. It repulsed her and at the same time truly frightened her. He waved his gun at Liz with one hand and ripped her dress sleeve to reveal a bare shoulder with the other.

Liz smelled his filthy stench and realized that the skinny one had released her face. She rubbed her numb cheek and tried to breathe, but it didn’t come easily. Willing the pain to go away, she tasted fresh blood in her mouth. She tried to inch backwards without being noticed, away from the men. Within seconds, though, the big one had his hands around her neck, picking her off the ground, the toes of her black boots barely touching the wood floor.

He growled at her as he held her against a support post. “You can give us what we want, or we can have some real fun and just do it our way.”

His dirty calloused hand held her firmly around the neck, blocking her air. It became harder and harder to focus, but the fleeting thought that this had nothing to do with the county records fluttered through her humming mind.
God, please help me!
she prayed.

The big man loosened his grip slightly and she instantly grabbed a gulp of much-needed air. The oxygen allowed her brain to clear enough that she thought to reach for the gun under her apron. He stood just a step away from her and didn’t notice her movements.

The skinny man looked to the red doors and reached to turn the lock. He came closer to her and repeated, “Where’s the money?”

Liz thought he looked more evil than anything she had ever seen before. Clearly, they would kill her without a thought. Her fingers found the gun under the apron and she pointed it at the big man’s gut and squeezed the trigger. The Colt went off and both men looked at her, not knowing from where the shot had come. The big, stinking man loosened his grip completely and fell to the floor, pinning Liz under him as he fell.

A hole had burned through Liz’s apron, and the man’s blood had splattered across her. She knew she had to get up and pull the trigger once again, and his blood on her was of no consequence at all, nor was the dead man lying across her. The only thought she had was to stop the skinny man from moving toward the back of the store and absconding with her money.

She knew he would try to get the bag holding the day’s proceeds, and that he wouldn’t think a thing about killing her afterward. As he moved, he knocked over the display she had made earlier that day, and buttons flew across the floor like ants scurrying from an ant hill that had been kicked. Just as he reached the register, two gunshots blasted through the store. Liz scrambled to her knees as the smoke cleared.

Horror struck her heart as she saw that two more men had sprawled across the wooden floor of the mercantile, both of them covered in blood. One of those men … was her grandfather.

Liz scrambled across the floor toward her Grandpa Lucas, looking for either of the robbers’ guns as she crawled. Liz stayed low until she finally spotted the gun of the skinny man and slid it under the denim display.

He’s not moving
. She continued across the floor on her knees until she reached Lucas. “Grandpa,” she cried. “Are you all right? Tell me you’re all right, please.”

Dear Lord, this is too much blood
, she prayed.

Tears streaming down her face, she took hold of his hand as he struggled to get a breath. She wanted to embrace and comfort him but didn’t know where to touch him safely.

“What … should I do?”

Lucas fluttered his eyes and then squeezed them shut as he winced in pain. He lifted his head a little, taking in the quiet mercantile after so much calamity only moments earlier.

“Are they dead?” he asked before letting his head drop down again.

Liz looked back at the two men and said, “I think so.” She could barely make out their bodies through her tears.

She tore a section of her petticoat with her teeth and quickly folded it, looking for the source of so much blood loss. His thick crimson blood pooled around her, making it hard to find where it originated. Lucas moaned when she applied pressure to the left side of his chest.

“Don’t you dare leave me, Grandpa!” Liz begged as she tore at the edge of her petticoat again. “We’ll get you some help! It’ll just be a minute. Just stay with me.”

Liz tried to gain a little control, but the flow of blood continued to saturate the petticoat bandage.

Lucas’s voice was weak as he spoke. “Liz, take care of the others. Remember where your strength comes from.”

“No!” she sobbed. “Grandpa, noooo! Please, please don’t go. We need you here with us.”

Liz whimpered and leaned down to him, her dress soaking up his life blood. She wrapped her arms around his thick neck and draped her body across his chest.

“You can’t leave me,” she cried. “Don’t leave me, Grandpa.”

He stuttered out his last words. “Liz, the death angel is here for me. I see him in his white robe and the pearly gates are behind him.” He coughed, more blood coming from his mouth, his words slurred, “Marry Thomas, child. You need each other.” His eyes began to shut and he whispered, “Don’t worry, Elizabeth. I hear music. My Claire is waiting there for me.”

Liz fell completely limp across him. She heard the emptiness echo as his heartbeat slowed and then stopped, and she felt his last breath leave his body.

Her own cries howled as if they had been thrown into a barrel in some distant location.

The sun hung low in the sky as riders anxiously approached home, at last. Thomas, Tex, and Samuel had ridden together for two days. They didn’t talk much, but Thomas had begun to appreciate Samuel a little more as he got to know him better over the course of their ride. It turned out that Samuel owned land for a ranch not too far from where Thomas planned to build his own.

The motion of the horses as they galloped hypnotized Thomas and took him deep into his own thoughts, which placed him back in the land office in Houston.

The door had jingled as he entered, and the man with round glasses peered up at him from his desk. “Be right with you, mister,” he said, adjusting the bill of his hat. Thomas watched the little man as he continued with the work in front of him and dipped his pen into the inkwell three more times before looking up at Thomas again. “Welcome to the Texas Land Office. What county are you filing in?”

The man’s spectacles sat perched on the end of his long, pointed nose, and he looked at Thomas over them. He couldn’t help thinking that the man resembled a rat. “Denton County,” Thomas had responded.

The man pulled out a new form and dipped his pen. He held it firmly and began to fill in the lines. Within the hour, Thomas had filed on his land.

“I need to send a letter. Can I borrow a paper and pen?” Thomas asked the clerk. The man reached into his desk and pulled out a clean sheet and pen with an inkwell. “You can write over there.” He motioned to a counter by a window.

Thomas looked out to a busy city. Horses and people, all in a hurry to go somewhere. He knew the quiet ranchland he had purchased was exactly what he wanted. He couldn’t imagine ever longing for the hum of city life. He looked forward to sharing his excitement with Liz, Lucas, and the rest of the family. The time he was away made him forget his anger of days ago.