True to the Law (43 page)

“Riiight. In jail. And Cil’s in your bed. Thass very bad of you. Cobb says you’re a bad man. I told him he was wrong. Frank’s bad. You’re . . .
weak
.” Tru could not get out of the way as Andrew struck. The flat of his hand connected hard with her cheek, knocking her head sideways. She put up an arm to defend herself, but he was already withdrawing by then. Tru laid her palm against her hot, stinging cheek and stared at him, her expression more pitying than accusing.

Andrew’s hands curled into fists, but he moved them to his lap. In a flat voice that did not encourage argument, he said, “Finish your drink.”

The thought of another sip made her stomach roil. In spite of that, she picked up her teacup. Would it be such a bad thing if she were sick? Perhaps not. Andrew would be furious. He might even hit her again, but that was surely better than whatever was coming.

Tru knocked back her drink. She set the cup down hard, rattling the saucer, and gave Andrew a defiantly drunken smile. That smile was still in place when her eyes glazed over and she toppled face forward. Her head banged the tabletop. The teacup upended and the saucer slid sideways. The whiskey bottle jumped. Only Andrew was still, and that changed a moment later when everything else quieted and he was the only one moving.

* * *

For once Rabbit and Finn did not charge through a doorway simultaneously. Rabbit was indeed as quick as his namesake and arrived a full four seconds before Finn.

Jessop and Jem Davis leapt up from the bench the moment the door crashed open. Jessop grabbed Rabbit by the coat collar and yanked him back before he reached Cobb’s desk. Jem scooped Finn under one arm and held him fast in spite of his squirming.

Cobb stood at the side of his desk, not behind it. William T. Barrington was sitting in the chair, his legs shackled together. Barrington looked at the newcomers. Cobb continued to watch his prisoner.

Rabbit pointed to the bank robber. “That’s him! From the wall!”

Finn stopped squirming and looked to where his brother was pointing. “You got a villain, Marshal!”

Without looking away, Cobb said, “Put him down, Jem. Jess, let Rabbit go. Stay where you are, boys. Do your grandparents know you’re here? Are they all right?”

“No,” said Finn.

“Yes,” said Rabbit.

Cobb didn’t try to sort that out. “Tell me why you’re here.”

“On account of Miss Morrow,” said Rabbit.

Simultaneously Finn said, “On account of a wolf.”

Cobb heard neither of them clearly from behind their scarves. “One at a time.” He gestured for them to pull their scarves down. “Someone begin.”

For once Finn deferred to his older brother. Rabbit said, “We just come from Miss Morrow’s house. We were looking for rascals ourselves. You know, because we got blamed for stirring up a fuss over that way, remember?”

“I remember.”

“Well, we were looking around here and there. Evidence, you know. And we took a couple of peeks in Miss Morrow’s kitchen window to see if . . . just to see.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Finn stood on my shoulders and then I stood on his. First time we were there we—”

“You were at her house twice tonight?”

Rabbit nodded. “Goin’ out and comin’ back. Ow!” He glared at Jessop for cuffing him lightly on the back of the head. “What was that for?” He stepped away when Jessop merely raised an eyebrow at him. “You didn’t let me finish. First time she wasn’t even home so we just looked around, not in. Later, on our way to headin’ home, she was just getting back with Mr. Phillips.”

“Mr. Phillips? Don’t you mean Mr. Johnson?”

“No. After she left here, we saw Mr. Johnson walk with her up to the Phillips’s place.”

“Imagine that,” Cobb said under his breath. “Go on.”

Rabbit told Cobb about Mrs. Stillwell’s cat and hiding under the porch and how they would have left if Finn hadn’t come up with the idea of seeing Miss Morrow with her hair down. This time it was Finn who got cuffed and Jem who delivered the soft blow.

“That’s when we saw Mr. Mackey,” said Rabbit. “Don’t exactly know—”

“Mackey?”

“Yeah. Mr. Andrew Mackey. Not the other one.”

Cobb stepped away from his prisoner. “Jem, take Mr. Barrington back to his cell. You and Jake stay here. There’s a shotgun in the closet in the back. It’s loaded. Jessop, you come with me.” Cobb grabbed his hat and duster. “Rabbit. Finn. You go on home now.”

Finn got out of the way as Jem moved to take care of Barrington, but he dogged Cobb’s footsteps to the door. “Don’t you want to know what else, Marshal?”

Cobb stopped and looked back and down at Finn. He could barely keep his patience in check. “What else?”

“He
howled
. That’s why we went back, and that’s how I know he’s a wolf.”

Rabbit came up behind his brother. “It’s on account of the whiskey.”

“He’s drinking?” asked Cobb.

“No,” Rabbit and Finn said together. “She is.”

Chapter Sixteen

They saw the fire’s eerie glow against the night sky just as they turned the corner to Tru’s street. Starting to run, Cobb ordered Jessop to roust the Stillwells and the other neighbors and shouted back to Rabbit and Finn, who were still following with what they imagined were stealth-like movements, to ring the church bell to roust everyone else.

It was the back of the house where the fire was fully engaged. Cobb knew that the boys had last seen Tru at the kitchen table. In order to keep moving, to keep his mind clear, he could not allow himself to believe she was still there.

The front door of the house did not submit to his shoulder or his boot. He drew his gun and slammed the pearl grip against the parlor window. Glass shattered, and he heard the consuming rush of flames. It was impossible not to imagine the fire leaping forward in search of fresh air. He roughly cleared out enough glass to allow him to crawl through the opening. Smoke billowed toward him as he holstered his gun. His eyes stung. He bent, pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, and tied it around the lower half of his face.

Above the pop and crackle of the flames, Cobb heard the church bell. At this time of night, no one could mistake its violent, incessant peal for anything but a call for help.

Cobb stayed down and quickly searched the parlor and then the dining room, aided by the fire’s terrible glow. Heat kept him from reaching the kitchen. He tried to see in, tried to get closer, and was always held at bay. He could make out the stove, the china cupboard. The table was engulfed. Flames attached themselves to the walls like red-hot ivy and defied gravity by turning at right angles to advance across the ceiling. The floor was a carpet of fire.

The kitchen window exploded. The fire roared again, and this time Cobb was beaten back. Turning, he headed for the stairs. What he had not seen in the kitchen was a body.

Taking the steps two at a time, Cobb passed the back bedrooms, where the fire would soon break through, and went straight to Tru’s room. He found her lying facedown on the floor beside her bed, one arm stretched out under it. The shotgun? Had she been trying to reach her shotgun?

Cobb couldn’t give more than a cursory thought to the explanation. Beyond her windows, he could hear shouting. Once he thought he heard his name. It would be all right. He told himself that as he turned Tru over and lifted her under her arms into a sitting position. Except for her head lolling forward, she didn’t stir.

He straightened and pulled her to some semblance of standing as he rose. He knew she was deadweight in his arms and completely unable to help him, but with his heart hammering in double time, he was able to hoist her over his shoulders without effort or awkwardness. When she was secure, he started for the staircase.

And discovered the fire had beaten him to it.

It was only a high, thin wall of flames that was climbing the steps, but Cobb couldn’t trust that the underside of the stairs wasn’t already under attack. If they collapsed while he was on them, he would lose Tru. He retreated to the relative safety of her room and unceremoniously dumped her on the bed. He opened the window that looked out onto the street and down on the narrow and uncovered front porch. The pumper had not arrived from the livery where it was kept, but people who had gathered had already formed a bucket brigade that started somewhere behind Taylor’s Bathhouse and Laundry.

Jessop Davis saw Cobb first and shouted for someone to get a ladder before Cobb called out the same request. Immediately, Mr. Taylor and Ted Rush stepped out of the brigade and began running toward Ted’s hardware store.

Cobb ducked back inside and left Tru’s room to see how far the flames had climbed the stairs. It was concerning to see they were already halfway up the steps and that the tallest among them was spiraling toward the hall railing. He went to Tru’s bedside, hunkered down, and laid his palm flat on the floor. The wood was warm, even hot in places. Smoke was rolling in, and it was harder to breathe now. Cobb decided that he could not wait for the ladder, not for Tru. Perhaps not for himself.

Hoisting her as he had done before, Cobb carried her to the open window. From across the street, Evelyn Stillwell pointed to him and heads all around her lifted in his direction. He shouted his intentions and half a dozen men, including Jessop, Mr. Stillwell, and Walt Mangold, broke the line to rush forward and position themselves under the window.

It was impossible to get Tru through the window without banging her against the sash and sill. For the first time since he found her, he was glad she was insensible. Behind him, he heard the fire moving closer, the flames fanned by the new rush of night air. He held Tru tightly by her wrists as he lowered her as far as he could without falling through the window himself. She was still dangling six feet or more above the men prepared to catch her when Cobb let go.

There had been no time to get a blanket, let alone stretch it under the window. Tru’s rescuers stood in a circle and made a spider’s web of their arms. They moved a little to the right and then a little closer to the house as they watched Tru fall. Her drop brought two of them to their knees, but the web held. It was Walt who was left to cradle her when all the other hands released and untangled.

Cobb watched them safely clear the porch as flames shot through the window directly below him. People were moving out of the way to make room for the team of horses and pumper truck coming down the street. Walt gave Tru over to Jenny Phillips. Several women came forward and quickly circled Tru as she was lowered to the ground. They covered her with their own coats.

Jessop stood in the middle of the street and waved his arms wide at Cobb. When Cobb waved back, Jessop cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, “The ladder’s not here yet. Jump!” Without waiting for Cobb’s reply, Jessop called the other men forward again and headed back to the front of the house. This time the flames kept them from getting close.

Mr. Stillwell directed the men with the pumper to aim their hose at the part of the fire that was preventing him and the others from approaching the house. Cobb leaned out the window. He felt the spray of water and the flash of heat on his face. Under his feet, there was only the spread of heat.

There was no retreating now. There was no chance to save anything for Tru if he was going to save himself. Cobb laid his hand against his chest for a moment, not precisely over his heart, but over the pocket in his vest where he kept the sketch he’d made of Tru. For luck, he thought, or at least as much luck as he’d had the last time he jumped from the second floor of her house.

Cobb sat on the windowsill, brought his knees up, and pivoted. He dropped his legs over the side. Fire licked at his boot heels. Water sprayed down the front of the house. He was aware that people were yelling, waving, encouraging him to jump quickly, but he only had eyes for the circle of women protecting Tru. It seemed the most natural thing in the world that they should part suddenly and that she would be there, standing more or less on her own with Jenny close at her side. He yanked down on his kerchief and grinned at her.

He jumped then, and he thought he saw Tru crumble before he had cleared the window. The wooden porch absorbed his impact better than the ground, but Cobb had to drop and roll to displace the rest of the energy. He was quickly surrounded and hustled away from the house so the hose could be properly aimed again. Without looking back, he told the volunteers to save the Stillwells’ property.

Cobb dropped to his knees beside Tru. She was sitting up, supported by Jenny’s hand at her back. Away from the reek of smoke, he could tell that she smelled of whiskey and sickness. He didn’t care. Pulling her into his arms, he held on. She shuddered in his embrace. Profound relief was in her weak laughter and in her tears. She squeezed her arms out from under his and looped them around his shoulders. When he stood, she rose with him.

“It was Andrew,” she whispered.

“I know.”

“You were right about him.”

He did not respond to that.

“I’m so tired,” she said. “So very tired.”

Cobb nodded and gently removed her hands from his neck. “Go with Jenny. I’ll come for you there after I’m done.”

Weary with drink and despair, Tru still understood what that meant. She wavered on her feet but didn’t move away. “You’re going after Andrew.” It wasn’t a question.

“I am.”

“Alone?”

He nodded. “I have to. You know why.”

She did. “He told me he was going back to the Pennyroyal.” Tru jumped as another window in her house shattered. “Cecila’s there. He drugged her, I think. The same as he did to me. It was never the brooch, Cobb. He says it’s paste. It’s because of Aunt Charlotte’s will that he—”

Cobb put a finger to her lips. “Later. You can tell me later. Go with Jenny.” He kissed her on the brow and turned her into the curved arm that Jenny held out for her. “I won’t be long.”

Tru caught his sleeve and held on.

Cobb stopped. “What is it?”

She beckoned him closer, and when he came, she tilted her head forward so that she would have his ear. “I love you, and my answer is
yes
.”

The promise that was inherent in Cobb’s usual smile was fully realized as he searched Tru’s upturned face. “You saved a drowning man.”

She released his sleeve and gave him a gentle push. “Go now, and come back to me.”

Jessop Davis stepped up to accompany Cobb, but Cobb shook his head. “Stay here. You, too, Jim.” He nodded to several others who wanted to fall in with him. “You’re all needed here. The fire isn’t finished with us yet.”

No one argued the point. They had the water and the will to stop the fire, but Cobb had the gun. Thanks to Rabbit and Finn, Andrew Mackey’s name was a curse on the lips of every man slinging a bucket or pumping furiously at the truck.

Cobb ignored the ache in his ribs as he sprinted toward the Pennyroyal. Andrew Mackey’s life would end on a rope before he saw the inside of the jail if the town burned. Cobb knew it could come to that anyway.

No one was left in the saloon as Cobb strode past, and Mackey was not standing on the hotel’s porch with the other guests who had been roused from their beds. They tried to stop him to ask whose house was burning on the other side of town, but he ignored them all. He was halfway up the stairs before someone thought to close the door behind him.

Andrew Mackey’s hubris was no less than his younger cousin’s. It was the only thing that Cobb could think of to explain why Mackey hadn’t bothered to lock his door. In his own way, the lawyer was as insensible to the danger around him as Tru had been.

Cobb drew his gun but held it at his side as he entered the suite. There was a lamp burning on a table inside the door. It was immediately evident that Mackey was not in the large, open sitting and dining area, but the room to his left and the other two to his right were dark and silent. “It’s Cobb Bridger, Mr. Mackey. There’s a fire. Everyone has to leave the hotel.”

Cobb knew Mackey could not be asleep and that any delay in his response was merely a pretense. He counted out fifteen seconds under his breath before he called again. Sure enough, he heard movement coming from the bedroom on his left. He walked toward it.

“Marshal here, Mr. Mackey. You have to leave.” He stood in the doorway and could make out Mackey sitting up on the edge of the bed. “Is there someone with you?”

“Miss Ross.”

“Why isn’t she getting up?”

“She drank rather freely last night, I’m afraid.” He stood and grabbed his trousers. “Did I hear you right? There’s a fire? Here in the hotel?”

“No. Miss Morrow’s house.”

Mackey paused. “My God. Is she all right? What happened?” Holding his trousers, he moved to the window and peered out. The distant fire briefly lighted his face as he swore softly. “Is she in there?”

Cobb’s voice was flat. “We have to assume she didn’t make it out. No one’s seen her. The fire isn’t contained, and no one could get in. Get dressed.” He holstered his gun and approached the bed. Putting a hand on Cil’s shoulder, he shook her. When he let go, she simply rolled back into her sleeping position. “You can carry her,” Cobb said. “Everyone has to leave. Wrap her in a blanket and bring her clothes.”

Mackey finished tucking in his shirt. “Is that necessary, Bridger? She has to live in this town. Why don’t we go down, and if the fire moves this way I’ll go back up then and get her. No one else needs to know.”

Cobb pretended to think about it. “All right.”

“I want to help,” Mackey said.

“Good. We need as many hands as we can get. You didn’t hear the church bell?”

“I heard it,” he said, pulling on his jacket. “I didn’t know what it meant. Let’s go, Bridger.”

Cobb followed him out of the bedroom and waited while Mackey got his coat, hat, and gloves, then he waved him on and stayed a few steps behind as they headed down the stairs.

Mackey looked back once. “Why did you have your gun drawn when you came in my room?”

“Habit. I wasn’t sure you were awake enough to be thinking clearly. Your cousin wasn’t.”

Andrew nodded. “So I heard.”

“In fact,” said Cobb as they stepped out onto the porch. “I could use your help clearing the jail. I can’t leave my prisoners there. If the wind changes, the fire will move straight toward them. I can take care of Barrington and Beck if you’ll look out for Frank.”