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Then she placed a hand to her throat when Deputy Dobbs ran from the jail, stopping only momentarily to stare at the blazing inferno halfway down the street from the jail.
As she had hoped, he did not look back with concern at the jail, his worries for his one prisoner gone the instant he had seen the fire.
Running down the middle of the dirt road, he waved his hands in the air, shouting “Fire.”
Having not expected the deputy to make such a racket, Lauralee frowned and died a slow death inside. Before long the whole town would be awake! Now she had to work twice as fast or she would be caught.
Breathless, her heart beating anxiously, Lauralee saddled Dancing Cloud’s horse. She then swept the hem of her travel skirt up into her arms. Her knees weak, yet filled with determination and spirit, she ran into the jail.
She recalled the sheriff having slung the keys idly on top of the desk earlier in the day. That was where she expected to find them.
Her heart seemed to drop to her feet when she stared at the clutter on top of the desk, the keys nowhere among it.
Then recalling novels that she had read about the West, and where the sheriff in the books usually kept their keys, she ran to the door that led to the back room. She swung it open and just as she had hoped, to the right, on a nail in the wall, hung the huge circle of keys.
“O-ge-ye?” Dancing Cloud said, rising up from his bunk, the lamplight in the outer room illumining Lauralee’s face as she turned to him.
Seeing Dancing Cloud behind the bars, his hands clutched to them, made Lauralee know that she would go to the ends of the world, if needed, to set him free. Never had she loved him more than at this moment.
The love that soared through her gave her the strength to move on to the jail cell. She smiled weakly up at Dancing Cloud, then with trembling fingers, slipped the key into the lock. She wanted to shout “hooray” when the lock sprang free.
Dancing Cloud shoved the door open. For a moment he engulfed Lauralee within his powerful arms. “I told you not to take chances,” he said, his voice drawn.
“I had to,” Lauralee said, clinging.
Then she wrenched herself away from him and grabbed his hand. “Come on,” she said, her eyes looking guardedly around her as she and Dancing Cloud moved out into the outer room. “If we move quickly we won’t get caught.”
The sound of the fire bells and the thundering of hooves as the fire wagon rode down Broadway Avenue toward the raging fire caused Dancing Cloud’s eyes to move quickly to one side. “There is a fire,” he said, momentarily pausing as he stepped outside the front door.
He shifted his gaze down at Lauralee. “Did you . . . ?” he questioned, raising an eyebrow.
She smiled sheepishly up at him and nodded her head, then jerked on his hand. “We must leave,” she said. “Now. Thus far, no one is suspicious over the nature or origin of the fire. How could they think it was set to create a diversion so that someone could escape from their jail?”
Together they ran around the corner of the building, then stopped with a start when they came face to face with Paul Brown.
Lauralee stiffened.
Her eyes wavered into Paul’s.
Paul gazed slowly from Lauralee to Dancing Cloud, then at Lauralee again.
Lauralee’s first thoughts were to draw her derringer on Paul. But she knew that he would be much quicker. The heavy pistol hanging at his right hip caused her not to chance that.
“Lauralee, how did Dancing Cloud get free?” Paul asked, idly scratching his brow.
“Why are you here this time of night?” Lauralee questioned guardedly, her chin lifted stubbornly. “Did the fire bring you from the farm? I do not see how you could have seen it from that distance.”
“No, I didn’t see the fire. I’m not here for that reason,” Paul said. He rested a hand on his holstered pistol as he cast Dancing Cloud a frown. “I’m here to relieve Deputy Dobbs of his duties for the night.” He turned slow eyes to Lauralee again. “You see, I was deputized, myself, yesterday. It’s always been my ambition to become sheriff someday.”
“Lord,” Lauralee said, paling when she realized how she had alienated the very man who might have the power to seize Dancing Cloud again and be certain that he hanged. And not because he was a guilty man. Because Paul would be rid of the one obstacle standing in the way of having Lauralee.
But how was she to know? she despaired to herself. When she had been making plans to help Dancing Cloud, Paul Brown had been the last person on her mind.
Recalling the goodness of Paul’s father, how kind and generous he had been to Dancing Cloud, Lauralee saw the only recourse here was to get on that better side of Paul. She had often heard the phrase “like father, like son.”
Now she would give that saying a true test.
“Paul?” Lauralee said, stepping up to him. She rested a hand on his arm. “You’re a good man. An honest man. Do you wish to see someone as honest as you done wrong? Paul, I beg of you, let us pass. Dancing Cloud is innocent. He didn’t steal Kevin’s white stallion. “
