The Lawman's Bride. Cheryl St.John
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Sophie sat. The poor animal sounded as though it couldn’t catch a breath.
“I’m surprised that damned dog made it out,” the marshal said. “Cain’t walk further’n two feet at a stretch.”
“I pulled him out,” Sophie said.
“The hell you say.”
“Sam!” came a concerned shout.
The dog’s head jerked up.
“Sam!” Unmistakable, that voice.
“Over here, Clay,” Marshal Vidlak returned.
Clay ran toward the gathering and hunkered down on one knee, looking from the dog to the girl with the soot-streaked face.
“Lady here saved your worthless mutt,” Hershel said.
“You saved Sam?” Clay turned his attention to the rescuer. Her midnight-dark hair was loose and falling over one shoulder. Even though the black streaks on her face melded with the darkness, he recognized her. “Miss Hollis?”
She nodded, turned her head aside and coughed so hard, it sounded downright painful.
“You all right?”
“I’m fine,” she replied with a hoarse voice.
Sam’s breathing didn’t sound so good, but he licked Clay’s hand. Clay studied the smoke and ash rising from the nearly destroyed jail where the firemen were directing the water. He couldn’t turn the thought of Willard DeWeise over in his mind without bile rising in his throat. He glanced at Hershel, and the two men shared an uneasy look.
“Hell of a way to die,” Hershel said with a grimace.
Clay’s gut knotted.
“If you’re talking about your prisoner, he got out,” Miss Hollis croaked.
Clay turned and stared down. “He what?”
“He got out,” she repeated.
All three lawmen turned to listen.
“I—I was—” A racking cough halted her explanation. “I was in the park.”
Her voice was so low and raspy, they knelt to hear.
“The park across from the First Ward School?” Clay asked.
She nodded. “From the corner there I saw the flames. I ran this way. As I got closer, I saw the man you arrested from the lunch counter that day running out the door.” She pointed to the south. “He went that way.”
Clay was relieved to hear the man hadn’t turned to a cinder inside the jail, but the question of how he got out of a locked cell was damned puzzling.
“I heard the dog whining, so I just went in and helped him out.”
Clay and Hershel exchanged another baffled look.
“How the Sam Hill did DeWeise get out of that cell?” Hershel asked aloud.
“Someone had to have unlocked it,” Clay surmised. “One of the deputies.”
They turned and looked at the building. If one of the lawmen was still inside there, he was dead now.
“Account for all the men right now,” Clay ordered the young deputy.
“Yessir.” John Doyle shot away from them.
Miss Hollis attempted to get to her feet, and Clay helped her up with one hand under her arm and one around her slim waist. Her hair smelled like smoke. Few people would have risked their life for a dog’s. “Bet you were sorry you risked your neck once you saw the old mutt,” he said.
She glanced up, but when their eyes met, she looked away. “No.”
Another bout of coughing bent her at the waist.
“I’m takin’ her to Doc Chaney’s,” he told Hershel. “You make sure John reports back so we know if anyone’s missin’.”
“No. I’ll be fine,” the young woman protested.
“Don’t be foolish.” He called to one of the bystanders, “That your wagon? Give us a lift over to the doc’s, will ya?”
He assisted her into the back of the wagon, then settled the dog in. Clay jumped up beside them and nodded for the driver to move the horses forward. “Drive past Doc Chaney’s place on Seventh. Most likely he’s at home.”
Most of the fire was out, but smoke poured into the night sky. The entire ride Clay watched it rise. He wouldn’t have a moment’s peace until all his men were accounted for.
Shortly after Clay turned the bell, the young doctor answered the door. “Evening, Marshal.”
“Doc. Have one of the Harvey Girls out front. The jail’s on fire. She pulled my dog out and now she’s coughin’ mostly. That’s my main concern.”
“Anything coming up when she coughs?”
“Not that I’ve seen.”
“Is she burned?”
“Don’t think so.”
Caleb Chaney turned to the woman who walked up behind him. “The marshal says one of the Harvey Girls breathed in smoke, Ellie.”
“Bring her into the kitchen,” she said immediately. “Don’t waste time taking her to the office.”
Clay was grateful Miss Hollis would be taken care of quickly. “Thank you, ma’am.”
Mrs. Chaney accompanied Clay to the wagon and assisted Miss Hollis up the walk and across the porch.
Inside it smelled like apples and cinnamon. He’d been treated a few times at the man’s office—scrapes on a couple occasions and a bullet wound a year or so ago—but Clay had never been in the doctor’s house before. Doctors earned a hell of a lot more than marshals, he surmised, taking note of the furnishings. Then he remembered Doc Chaney came from a well-to-do ranch family.
The doctor’s wife pulled a rocker toward the kitchen table. “Sit here,” she offered.
Sophie took a seat and the woman lit several oil lamps.
“Can I do anything else, Caleb?” she asked.
“I’m guessing these two could use some water,” he suggested.
“I’m fine, ma’am,” Clay told her. “It’s Miss Hollis needs attention.”
Sophie coughed.
Doc asked her to lean forward. “I’m gonna thump you on the back and see if there’s anything that needs to come up,” he told her.
Sophie nodded.
He used his flattened palm to hit her good and hard a couple of times. The awful sound and the resulting expelled breath gave Clay a lump in his chest. He understood the treatment was for her own good, but he sure didn’t cotton to watching.
Ellie Chaney met his eyes with sympathetic understanding. He looked away and rubbed a hand down his face. He’d feel the same about anyone.
“See if you can drink now,” the doctor told Sophie.
She drank a whole glass of water and wiped her chin with the back of her hand.
Mrs. Chaney soaked a cloth and wrung it out. “Let me wash her up a bit now.”
The young doc backed away, giving his wife room to reach Sophie.
“I think she’s fine,” Caleb told Clay. “Doesn’t seem as though her lungs were affected.”
“She can go home then?”
“Isn’t the dormitory locked by this hour?” Mrs. Chaney asked.
Sophie nodded. The whites of her eyes were