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Her despair was so overwhelming, she suddenly wished now that she had been with her parents, and had died with them. Living without them, alone, would be worse than death. How could she go on, knowing her parents had died in such a way?
But she again focused on their clasped hands. That lone gesture of love made their deaths more bearable for Nicole. When she was overwhelmed with sadness and loneliness without them, she would remember the love her parents had shared as they took their last breaths of life.
Sobbing, she slid from her saddle and started to go and kneel beside her parents to say a prayer. She stopped, her heart almost coming to a standstill in her chest, when she saw movement out of the corner of her eyes.
Nicole turned quickly.
She was breathless with hope when she saw a man stirring on the ground not far from where her parents lay. He was alive!
Out of all this murder and mayhem…a man had survived.
At that realization, Nicole felt a surge of resentment toward this man for having lived while her parents had not. But being a Christian, she felt sudden shame at her uncharitable feeling and hurried to the man to see if there was anything she could do for him.
She knelt at his side. But as she did, she realized just how badly the man had been wounded.
Through the blood on his shirt, she saw that he had been shot in the belly. She knew that was one of the worst places to be shot, and that most times the victim did not survive.
Suddenly he reached out for Nicole’s hand and grabbed it. She could feel his trembling, yet there was a strange sort of determination in his grip. She saw that same determination in his eyes as he looked anxiously up at her through tears that were now streaming from his eyes.
“I’m so sorry,” Nicole struggled to say between her own sobs. “I am so truly sorry. I wish I could do something. Your name. What’s your name?”
She felt inadequate, knowing this was the only thing she could think to say to this man who was surely in so much pain, and whose breath could stop at any moment.
Surely he had more important things to say than his name! But what could be important if you knew you were dying?
Would he be thinking of his family? Was he wondering how they were? Would he ask her to search for them?
Her thoughts were interrupted when the man finally managed to speak.
“Harold Jones. My…name…is Harold…Jones,” he gasped, as he struggled to talk through the pain that was obviously gripping him. “Listen. Before I die, you must listen to what I have to say. You…need…to know that…it was white men who did this…not Injuns.”
Nicole noticed that he winced with each word spoken, as though a knife was stabbing into his wound. She felt the same pain, even though she had no wound except the one in her heart created by her losses!
Harold stopped and drew in a quivering breath, closed his eyes for a moment, but still held Nicole’s hand tightly.
Then he looked up at her again.
“Those men…they…looked innocent enough when they rode into town,” he continued, yet with a voice that grew fainter by the minute. “I must get this told. You need to know. Tell those who can do something about it.”
“I will,” Nicole gulped out as she looked quickly over her shoulder at her parents, and then back into Harold’s eyes. “I promise I will.”
“I was in the saloon when they came in,” Harold continued. “I was at the bar, drinking. The men, five of them, went over to the poker table and sat down. They started up a card game with Mr. Tyler. I…I…knew there would be trouble from the beginning. I could tell that one of those men had a grudge against Mr. Tyler.”
Nicole gasped again and felt the color drain from her face at hearing her father’s name. Harold stopped and studied her expression, but seeming to sense he had little time left on this earth, he continued.
“Suddenly everything went crazy. One of the men accused Mr. Tyler of cheating, saying Mr. Tyler had cheated before, too,” Harold said, his voice now barely a whisper.
Nicole listened with an aching heart, for she now knew without a doubt that her father had not kept his word about never gambling again.
“The man who accused Mr. Tyler of cheating said he’d not get the chance to cheat him again, or anyone else,” Harold said. “Mr. Tyler knew the man meant business and managed to flee the saloon before the other gambler got his first shot at him. I…I…followed the gambler and his men out of the building ‘cause I knew that all hell was ready to break loose. Suddenly Mr. Tyler’s wife was there. They…were both shot.”
Harold gasped in pain and paused. Nicole could tell that he was struggling now with every breath and expected him to die at any moment.
His hand weakened in hers. “I must…get…it said,” he said, his eyes now closed. “The strangers killed everyone in town. It was a massacre. They spared no one. The leader of this murderous gang? I caught one of the men calling him by name just before that same man turned and fired a bullet into my gut. The leader’s name…was…Sam Partain.”
After speaking the name of the man who had ordered the killings, Harold Jones gasped again, drew in a shuddering breath, and then died.
As his hand dropped away from hers, Nicole watched his body grow limp, his eyes now looking back at her with a death stare.
