Rebellion in the Valley (25 page)

Hailee looked down at her lap while a pool of
tears collected, attempting to hide the hurt she obviously felt
welling up inside.

Richard swallowed hard and shook his head,
knowing he’d played a part in her misery.

“Honey, I had to pretend your daddy was gone
so we could get Duffy cornered and find out what he was up to. I
hated myself every minute of every day for putting you through
it.”

In the deepest part of her head and in her
heart, too, she reasoned that she was not the only person who had
been caught in Duffy’s scheming, evil mind.

She also reasoned she was not the one Duffy
wanted dead.

Chapter 30

S
heriff Anderson lowered his eyes and steadied them on Howard
J. Duffman’s paperwork. It hurt him deep inside to be processing
attempted murder charges on the man he’d come to call a friend over
the years, but his hands were tied. And facts were facts; Duffy had
already confessed that he'd planned to get rid of Tobias, but when
his schemes went awry and Bruce took that tumble, he figured with
the man of the estate gone and out of the picture, he would’ve been
co-owner of the Red Bone Ranch practically overnight.

Yes, it tugged at his heart to be signing
this paperwork, but it was that last conversation between Bruce and
Duffy that made his stomach turn plum sick.

“But being just a co-owner would have never
left you satisfied, would it?” Bruce had asked him. “How would you
have taken care of that one last flaw in your plan?”

Duffy raised his evil, glaring eyes to meet
Bruce’s as he had the audacity to flash a sideways grin.

“It’s a big ranch here...lots of things can
cause an accident on a ranch. Everyone knows that. And Hailee ain’t
nothin’ but a dumb farm girl. She might’ve just had an ill fated
turn, that’s all.”

Before he had the chance to open his mouth to
say one more word, Tobias had the man by the neck with a fist
doubled up in his face.

“Why, you lousy son of a,” he spat in Duffy’s
face, not caring that he did.

Tobias plowed Duffy square in the nose and
knocked him to the ground.

“You’re the most disgusting piece of filth
I’ve ever seen! You wanna know why your little plan didn’t work?
I’ll tell ya why, Duffman. It’s because I happen to love Hailee and
I won’t ever allow scum like you to hurt her or her family!”

Giving the humiliated man who lay sprawled
out on the floor a swift kick before he walked away from him for
the final time, Tobias promised, “I’ll see you hanged for
this.”

P

Hailee sat in the center of her bed with her
knees all drawn up under her chin, twisting a strand of long blonde
hair around her finger, deep in thought and unable to erase the
images from her mind or unravel the events that had occurred in the
kitchen downstairs.

How could one person have become so evil?

A welcome knock at her door interrupted
depressing thoughts she’d been trying to forget.

“Come in,” she called out.

The glass door handle turned to reveal her
father's face.

“Hi, daddy!” she beamed. “It is so good to
have you back home again. My heart was broken in half without
you.”

He sat down on the edge of her bed and gave
her foot a shake.

“Well, I’m here now, and I’m not going
anywhere without you ever again.”

“Is that a promise?”

“It sure enough is. But for right now,
there’s a dandy young man waiting downstairs for you in the parlor
room. He mentioned something about asking you a question, but for
the life of me, I just can't figure out what that question might
be,” he winked.

As her left foot nearly caught in the lace of
her petticoat, his daughter tossed her book to the foot of her bed
and made a leap for the floor; she darted out the door so quickly,
her shoulder bumped into the door frame.

“Oomph,” she strained out, attempting to
regain some composure as she turned to see if her father had
witnessed the slick move.

Bruce just shook his head and smiled; the
look of utter peace on his face urging her to go ahead.

P

Tobias stood in front of the fireplace; a
nervous twitch had begun to flare up in both feet.

“Calm down,” he twisted his hat in his hands
and smoothed the brim back out again, only to repeat the process
another time or two. A nervous sweat covered his brow; he swiped at
it with his kerchief, but in an afterthought of mussing his
perfectly-combed mop of dark brown hair or worse - creating a
cowlick, Tobias rushed to the wall mirror for one last
inspection.

When he raised his eyes to the mirror, Hailee
stood in the reflection, wearing that blue dress the color of a
robin’s egg. Frilly white lace docked the neckline and matched a
sash around her waistline. Remembering once out by the barn, he
knew a bow tied at the back of the dress, because she’d asked him
to remove a twig the wind had blown into it.

“I talked to the sheriff. He said Duffy will
be taken into Canon City before lunch time tomorrow; we’ll never
see him ever again,” he promised, turning to speak.

Hailee nodded. There was nothing left for her
to say about Howard J. Duffman.

“But that’s not why I came to talk.”

She grabbed at another strand of hair, began
to twist it around her finger.

“No?”

“Remember when I asked you a while back if
you felt like maybe we missed a couple of steps somewhere in our
courting?”

Nodding, she took a seat in her chair.

“I do. And at the time, it felt like there
wasn't anything we could do about it.”

“But now,” Tobias sat down next to her,
“everything is back to normal, and I want you to have a proper
courting. I already asked your Pa for your hand, Hailee, and now
I'm asking you. Would you let me court you proper-like so I can ask
you to marry me?”

P

The sealed envelope from the US Marshall's
office sat at the edge of his desk. It had been delivered right as
he and the others were fixing to head on out to the Red Bone to nab
Howard, and yet the lawman passed it off as one more letter in the
pile he would get around to opening once the matter at the ranch
had been tended to.

With Howard locked safe and sound in one of
the tiny cells on the other side of the room, the sheriff's fingers
picked through a scattered pile of items in his desk drawer until
he spied the letter opener given to him by his grandfather. He slid
it underneath the flap to avoid tearing the paperwork inside.

His eyes began
reading:
Dear Sheriff Anderson: By order
of President Buchanan of the United States, I have been
commissioned to visit your jail and surrounding township within the
next two weeks time. In preparation of this visit, it would be
advisable to see fit that any and all legal matters requiring
attention be taken care of prior to my arrival in order to make an
accurate report. It will be within my jurisdiction to assign an
additional deputy, if necessary, upon my arrival - in the case that
lawlessness has become too heavy a burden for you alone. It is my
pleasure to work with in unison with you under the law.

Sheriff Anderson kicked both boots up and
rested them at the edge of his desk; a slow grin began to spread
across his face.

Justice. That's what his badge stood for.

P P P

Thank you for reading my story!

If you enjoyed it, you may consider leaving
a review

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you thought.

robynleatherman.com
http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/RobynLeatherman

What to look forward to in
2014:

The second book in the Valley trilogy,
Anticipation in the Valley, will take my readers back to the Wet
Mountain Valley.

We'll find out what becomes of not only Duffy
– but also his shares in the Pocahontas Mine and learn how the man
adjusts to his new life at the end of Main Street in Canon
City.

Hailee and Tobias tie the knot and begin
their new life together, each taking on some new
responsibilities.

Of course, it wouldn't be a proper western
story without a good old-fashioned bank robbery and a silver mine
takeover, so if you'd like to find out more about what happened in
the tiny mountain towns of Rosita, Westcliffe, and surrounding
areas in the 1870s, stay tuned to my website and of course – right
here on my Smashwords page!