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“Please let it go, Ben.” Betsey’s words were drowned by the suddenly raised voices as everyone tried to speak at once. “That’s enough,” she said, grabbing Ben’s arm again.
“No. He can’t treat you like this!”
Everyone seemed to be shouting and the noise, coupled with nausea and her harried nerves cause the last of her composure to crumbled. “Stop it, all of you!” She jerked on Ben’s arm so hard hestumbled back a step. “He didn’t want me!” The tears were back, choking her as she sobbed. “He didn’t want me, Ben. He’s gone. Just let it go.”
She looked at the three of them, Keri’s eyes filling with tears. Betsey turned and ran to Pansy, climbed back into the saddle and took off at a fast clip. The tears came unbidden, and she cried until her heart felt hollow. She’d loved Aaron Hilam for as long as she could remember and he’d used her. He took the love she offered him and gave nothing back and the minute life got too difficult to handle, he left, even as she begged him to stay. She wasn’t enough for him. She never had been and as she raced across the prairie, she screamed, “I hate you Aaron Hilam! I hope you never come back!”
Her regret and heartache burned through her body until she was screaming from the pain and she vowed to never let another soul hurt her. She’d lived with the abuse of her drunken father and the taunts of ignorant Willow Creek residents who looked down their nose at her and she’d not live the rest of her life being scorned by anyone. She didn’t need them. She didn’t need anyone and she certainly didn’t need Aaron Hilam. What he’d left behind was all she needed. She laid a hand to her stomach. She’d give her baby the love she’d desperately wanted her entire life and never received and would not let that man near her again. One broken heart was enough to last her a lifetime and if she never saw Aaron Hilam again, it would be too soon.
Silver Falls, Montana - December 1884
He’d shot a man. The barrel of his gun still smoked, the scent of gunpowder thick in the air, the sound of crying and loud voices ringing in his ears.
The old man lay by his feet, gasping for breath as the front ofhis shirt bloomed red, his blood leaking from the bullet wound. Aaron stared down at him wondering how he’d ended up here.
A glance to his right showed the Indian girl he’d been talking to, Morning Dove, still crumpled in the street. Her lip was bleeding, fat tears sliding down her face. Two women helped her stand and Aaron didn’t miss the grateful look she flashed him before she was led away. He wasn’t sure what the look was for, though. Was it because he’d stopped the old coot from beating her senseless in the street or the fact he’d shot him because, if his eyes weren’t deceiving him, she’d been smiling as she turned away.
A man wearing a badge stepped into his line of sight, the word Marshal hammered out on the top of the shiny star. “Drop the gun.”
Aaron did as told and took a step away from it when the marshal bent to pick it up.
The old man was bellowing like a dying cow and those on the street looking on were huddled in small clusters. The marshal spoke quietly to a man helping the fella he shot off the ground, then turned to face him.
“Let’s you and me go over to the jail and have a little talk.”
Aaron inhaled a deep breath and headed across town. This would only add to the problems that had been weighing heavy on his shoulders over the last several months. He’d made so many mistakes over the past year, it was no wonder things like this kept happening. He was convinced some cosmic force was getting even with him for the way he’d been treating people in his life as of late and it had every right to. Lord knew he had a lot to atone for.
A sign by the door of the marshal’s office read Josiah Lincoln, Marshal. The office was one big room with a single barred cell along the back wall. A desk sat on the right with two chairs in front of it, a pot-bellied stove on the left-hand wall. The small space smelled of coffee and gun oil and there were only two windows which let in very little light.
“Have a seat.”
Aaron pulled one of the chairs away from the desk and sat down as instructed.
The marshal took his time rounding the desk. He put Aaron’s pistol in one of the drawers and blew out a breath as he sat down across from him, the width of the scarred wood separating them. He removed his hat and ran his fingers through his hair, then met his gaze. “What happened?”
Good question. Aaron wasn’t sure where to start. “Old man pulled a gun on me. My bullet hit what I was aiming for, his didn’t.”
“And why did he pull a gun on you?”
Another good question. “Well, close as I can figure, he didn’t want me talking to Morning Dove.”
“What were you talking about?”
“Nothing in particular. She caught me staring at her so I apologized. It’s not every day a man sees an Indian and lives to tell about it.”
“No, guess not.” The marshal rubbed his chin, the rasp of a shadow beard loud in the stillness. “And Walter figures into this how?”
“Is Walter the old man?”
“Yes.”
Aaron nodded. “He came barreling down the sidewalk toward us and the girl flinched before he even reached her side. The moment he got close enough, he grabbed her arm and jerked her toward him hard enough her feet flew out from under her. She started babbling about how we were just talking and trying to pick herself up and the old man slung her against the side of the mercantile. When she tried to grab his arm, he hit her.”
He clenched his jaw as the scene flashed back inside his head. He’d lost count of how many times he’d seen his uncle hit his ma or how many times he’d wanted to kill him for it and seeing that old man take a fist to that girl made something inside him snap. “He punched her in the face three times. That last one was hard enough her head snapped back and hit the wall loud enough her eyes rolled in her head a bit and I just—“ He clenched his fists and looked out the window into the darkened street. “I jumped him. We rolled into the street, tussled a bit, and I gave him a few punches to the head to let him know how it felt. When I saw Morning Dove standing beside us, I stood up and turned to see if she was all right. The old man got to his feet and when I looked his way, he pulled a gun and pointed it at me. I did the same. Luckily for me, his shot went wild.”
The door opened and a man he hadn’t seen before nodded his head at him, then looked at the Marshal. “Everyone I talked to that saw what happened said Walter pulled his gun on him.”
The marshal flicked a quick glance his way and looked back toward the door. “How is Morning Dove?”
