The Marshal's Wyoming Bride. Tatiana March
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Miss Rowena. She’s a lady, a real lady. Not a lady of the night.”
At his next stop, the livery stable, Dale discovered the wagon used in the escape had been rented but the horse, a big chestnut thoroughbred, had belonged to Revery, and he had ridden the animal into town. It was uncommon to have a horse trained for both harness and saddle, a detail which added to Dale’s suspicions.
A telegram to the Claims Recorder in the Warren Mining District received the surprising reply that the mining claim the swindlers had been peddling did in fact exist and had been legally filed, but the land had been sampled and was deemed worthless. However, the presence of the nearby Copper Queen mine in Bisbee, valued at nearly two million dollars, allowed even plain gravel to be marketed as if it were solid copper.
Dale returned to his room, compiled a list of the victims and the amounts they had lost. No one had been swindled out of more than one hundred dollars, a relatively modest amount in such an affluent town, and the majority of the victims had lost fifty or twenty-five dollars. It seemed the fraudsters were skilled in estimating what people could afford, and only allowed them to invest accordingly, using the excuse that they had a limited number of shares in the claim available and needed to give everyone an opportunity to profit.
When the list of investors was complete, Dale added up the total. Altogether, Revery and his accomplice, Robert Smith, had taken just over three thousand dollars.
Of course, Revery and Smith were unlikely to be their real names. Frowning, Dale searched his memory. He could recall reading about a similar case in Colorado a year earlier. On that occasion, the perpetrators had called themselves Edmond Rawlins and Billy Jones. One name with matching initials, the other so common it wouldn’t trigger any alarm bells. Everything tied together neatly. The only thing Dale couldn’t figure out was how Rowena McKenzie fitted into the setup. He got to his feet, glimpsed at his new haircut in the mirror and pulled on his freshly pressed coat. Time to find out.
* * *
It was not lonely in the jail. Women came to visit, delivering clean clothes and gossip. As long as the other two cells remained unoccupied, the nights were calm. The meals were adequate and the sheriff provided hot water to wash and the privacy to benefit from it.
If it hadn’t been for the worry about Claude and Eugene, and the guilt over having betrayed the people in Pinares that constantly chafed at her, like a pair of ill-fitting shoes, Rowena might have regarded her incarceration as a holiday. She harbored no fears about her own fate, for she took it for granted that the judge would believe her when the time came to reveal the truth. But today she felt restless. When her ears picked out a slightly uneven cadence of footsteps in the corridor, her heartbeat quickened.
She bounced up from the cot. Turning her back to hide her efforts, she fluffed up the wispy curls at her temples and adjusted the collar of her sage-green wool dress, a worn but good quality garment which Permelia Jenkins, the tailor’s daughter, had only just that morning returned after cleaning and pressing it with an expert touch.
Today the sheriff must have dispensed with his guardian duty, for the marshal with a crescent-shaped scar on his cheek walked up to the cell unaccompanied. A jolt went through Rowena at the sight of him. He’d had a haircut. And he’d tidied up his clothing. Although the difference was subtle, it emphasized the combination of violence and elegance that would surely have sent all her old school friends into a swoon.
The marshal unlocked the iron grille with one hand, while dangling a sturdy captain’s chair from the other. Not making a sound—not even a muffled clunk, as if to compensate for his angry outburst the day before—he lowered the chair to the floor, settled onto the wooden seat and fired a question at her.
“How do you know the men called Elroy Revery and Robert Smith?”
Rowena controlled a flinch. So, the marshal had already figured out the connection between her and the fraudsters. She sank to sit on the cot. “I have nothing to say.”
“What are their real names?”
“I have nothing to say.”
“Why did you help them escape?”
She clamped her lips together. I have nothing to say no longer seemed an adequate response, so she chose to meet a question with a question.
“How did you get your scar?”
“Do they have some kind of hold on you?”
“How did you become a federal marshal?”
That last question hit its mark. She could tell from the slight narrowing of those cool green eyes that watched her every move. “I have a deal for you,” Marshal Hunter said. “I shall answer one of your questions if you answer one of mine.”
Rowena mulled it over. In the back of her mind, she could hear her father’s voice, raspy from a lifetime of herding cattle in the harsh Wyoming climate. “Make a deal with the devil and you might end up in hell.” He’d quoted those words about using violence to defend the ranch, and the memory of his reluctance had made her doubt the word of Reese, the gunman who claimed her father had employed him.
But now, as Rowena met the sharp scrutiny of Marshal Hunter, an odd tingle of anticipation and daring skittered along her skin. Such a bargain could be used to provide misdirection, confuse the marshal’s train of thought. And, in truth, she wanted to learn more about him. What harm could there be, if she posed her questions wisely and gave her replies with caution.
“Can I choose which questions to answer?”
Marshal Hunter nodded his assent.
“How did you get your scar?”
“I was left for dead and a coyote tried to have me for his supper.” He paused and gave her a speculative look. “How did you end up in Pinares?”
Rowena suppressed a smile. So, he had accepted she wouldn’t talk about the shooting. He would lead her round and round the topic, attempting to trip her up. Sitting straighter on the cot, she curled her hands around the rough timber edge and sharpened her concentration. “I came here soon after I left school. How did you become a federal marshal?”
“I had nothing better to do. Where did you go to school?”
“Boston. Where did you grow up?”
“Louisiana. Are you running away from something?”
“I…” She was wearing thick socks and no shoes, and she lifted her heels, balancing the balls of her feet against the cold cement floor, the nervous movement hidden by the folds of her green wool skirt. “I was running away…when I came here…” Rowena lowered her lashes, but she could not resist glancing up again. She studied the crescent-shaped scar on the marshal’s face—a scar that bore the fang marks of a coyote. “And you…when you became a United States Marshal…were you running away from something?”
To her surprise, Marshal Hunter broke into a smile. It transformed his face, making him look young and carefree. The green eyes sparkled with humor. “I was running away from something,” he admitted. “And that something was an overbearing, determined mother who had her own ideas about how I should live.” The smile lingered. “My turn. Who were you running away from?”
She hesitated, then spoke quietly. “Myself.”
“Never an easy thing to do,” the marshal replied with a note of empathy in his tone.
Rowena nodded. “My turn.”
She intended to fire out another question, but her mind went blank. She had asked about his home, about his choice of career. What about his family? Before her brain caught up with the implications of the question, she blurted out, “Are you married?”
Slowly, the marshal’s expression sharpened and those green eyes fastened on her, so bold and direct Rowena believed they could see to the very core of her. But when the marshal replied, his voice was bland, perhaps a little impatient. “Why do you want to know?”
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