“It came, Miss Ro! It came! Your telegram!”
A boy of about eight, swamped in his older brother’s hand-me-downs, charged into the room and scrambled to a halt in front of Miss Rowena. He thrust a folded telegram at her. “It came just now on the wire, clackety-clack. Pa wrote it down and I brung it over as fast as me feet carried me.”
Rowena folded open the telegram, gave the message a cursory glance and threw her arms around the boy. “Oh, Clarence, you are wonderful. I’ll pay you later. A dollar. Remind me.”
Blushing, the boy extracted himself. “I don’t need no money, Miss Ro.”
“But you shall have it anyway.” Relief evident upon her features, Miss Rowena turned to the judge. “May I take the stand first, Your Honor? I think it will save time.”
Sheriff Macklin swore her in, her hand on the Bible that must have been handled by more criminals than clergymen. While Miss Rowena gave the oath, a smile hovered around her mouth. She sat down in the witness chair and turned to the judge. “I plead innocent, Your Honor, due to the simple fact that there was no killing.”
A startled intake of breath hissed around the courtroom. Everyone kept their eyes riveted on the witness stand. Still coasting on the rush of relief, Miss Rowena burst into rapid talk. “You see, I know these two men—Elroy Revery and Robert Smith—from the past. They operate a swindle, and they have an emergency measure that allows them to escape, should the need arise.”
Gesturing, she went on with her explanation. “Revery leaps onto his horse—or onto the wagon bench if the horse is in harness—and Smith, who is pretending to be one of the disgruntled investors, fires his pistol. The horse is trained to bolt at the sound. Revery has a pouch of red ink hidden beneath his shirt. He makes the pouch burst and slumps down, clutching at his chest, as if mortally wounded. The horse canters away, carting Revery to safety. Smith behaves like a madman, to create a diversion that stops anyone from setting after Revery.”
Rowena paused, to allow the judge to review the details in his mind. “See?” she said brightly. “It’s a simple plan, but it works. No one realizes Smith is part of the swindle, and he quietly slips out of town. He has never been arrested for doing the shooting, because everyone believes Revery got what he deserved. And, because everyone believes that Revery will die from the bullet wound, they don’t worry too much about chasing after him. Only on this occasion Smith fell over in the crowd, and he couldn’t fire his pistol, so I had to do it instead of him.”
Stop smiling, Dale berated in his mind. Don’t look so damn pleased.
But, just like she lacked a poker face, Miss Rowena lacked the skill to hide her emotions, and now her entire demeanor reflected the easing of fear, the joy of finally being able to tell the truth.
The judge scowled at her. “You helped your accomplices to commit fraud?”
“No.” Furiously, she shook her head. “No! I don’t work with them. I’ve never participated in a swindle in my life, never cheated anyone. It is simply that I owed these men a debt of gratitude, for they once saved my life. I had to help them escape.”
“Fifty dollars I lost,” someone shouted.
“They took twenty-five from me!”
The judge banged his gavel. “Silence! Silence in my courtroom.”
The angry voices faded to a mutter.
“I tried to stop the swindle.” Alarmed now, Rowena faced the crowd, flinching at the angry stares directed at her. “I’d been laid down with a fever, and by the time I recovered and learned Revery and Smith were in town, the fraud had already been perpetrated. I went to see Revery, begged him to give back the money, but he said it would be too dangerous, that he would be prosecuted anyway. I tried to warn people, told them not to invest, but nobody would listen to me…”
The judge made a stabbing motion with his gavel, pointing at her. “You could have gone to the sheriff.”
“I thought of it…of course I did… For days, I was fraught with indecision, torn between conflicting loyalties… But the sums they took were not significant…” Rowena nodded at the crowd, picking out some of the victims. “Mr. Timmerman, I know you spent much more than that on the new furniture for your living room…and Mr. Hoskins, I’ve heard you boasting that you gamble far greater amounts in the saloon every Saturday…and Mr. Silver, everyone knows that your new breeding bull cost at least three times as much.” Rowena spread her hands, looking contrite. “I feel bad for your losses, of course I do, but I know they will not have a lasting impact on your welfare. But these two men…” She shook her head and spoke with a plea in her tone. “I couldn’t have them arrested… I owe them my life…”
Gavel pointing, the judge addressed his words to Dale. “Marshal Hunter, you’ve entered yourself on record as a witness. Am I to believe this fancy tale?”
Dale got to his feet. “It’s not a fancy tale, Your Honor. My findings support what Miss McKenzie has testified. I believe these two conmen have been operating the same swindle throughout the western territories. They have escaped the attention of the law because they are careful to keep the amounts small, and I believe the mining claims they sell are genuine. They just happen to be worthless.”
The judge turned to Sheriff Macklin. “How much did the victims in this town lose? Has someone tallied it up?”
The sheriff handed over a sheet of paper. Head bent, eyes on the document, the judge announced his verdict. “The territory versus Miss Rowena McKenzie. The accused has been found guilty of participating in a fraud and has to make restitution to the amount of…” A pudgy finger traced down the column. “The amount of three thousand two hundred dollars, which allows everyone to be reimbursed and adds something for the court expenses. If the accused fails to make restitution within thirty days, she is sentenced to three years in the territorial penitentiary.”
The crowd gasped.
The gavel banged.
The judge called, “Next case.”
* * *
The sounds of the courtroom faded away in Rowena’s ears, as if she’d been trapped inside a bubble, isolated from her surroundings. She felt someone tugging at her arm. She turned to look and saw Sheriff Macklin frowning down at her.
“Miss Rowena, I’ve got to escort you back to the jail.”
Her eyes darted about, searching for Marshal Hunter. He was over by the judge’s desk, huddled in conversation. Of course, she was no longer his responsibility.
On legs that nearly buckled beneath her, Rowena rose from the witness chair and followed Sheriff Macklin out, past the rows of seats. People were staring. She clung to the deportment drilled into her by her expensive education and held her head high, but she knew the terrified look in her eyes betrayed her panic.
By the exit, she paused and turned around to face the crowd. “I’m sorry for what I have done. But I felt I had no choice. It is my firm belief that these men wouldn’t have survived a prison sentence. Not even for a year or two.”
Not pausing to evaluate if her apology had any impact on the hostile crowd, Rowena allowed the sheriff to escort her away. At the jail, the iron grille that had previously given her a sense of safety and privacy took on a sinister quality. She listened to it clunk shut and curled her hands around the solid iron bars.
“Sheriff Macklin, please… Yuma prison…do they take women…?”
“There’s been female felons incarcerated there.”
Felons. She was a felon. “Are they kept separate from the men?”
“I have no time for this, Miss Rowena. Not now. I’ve got to go back to the courthouse. We can talk in the evening.”