Refusing to give in to despair, Celia straightened on her feet. She dropped the turpentine-soaked rag into the steel bucket on the floor, wiped her hands on a piece of clean linen cloth and raised her voice to carry across the cracked glass partition.
“That’s the best I can get it.”
Before Mr. Northfield had a chance to come around and pass judgment on her efforts, footsteps thudded by the entrance. All day, curious visitors had crowded into the bank. Celia moved aside. It was up to the manager to deal with anxious inquiries from customers who might be worried about the safety of their deposits.
The man who strode in was thin and wiry, with a walrus mustache and a piercing blue gaze beneath an expensive tan-colored Stetson hat. Celia noted the pistol at his hip, then homed in on the tin star pinned to the man’s rawhide vest. He must be the county sheriff from Prescott, fetched by one of the saloon keeper’s sons.
Mr. Northfield ushered Celia away with a flap of his hand. “You can leave now, Miss Courtwood.” The dismissive gesture conveyed no gratitude for her unpaid labor.
“Perhaps my father could leave, too?” Celia suggested, her brows lifted in a tentative appeal. “He is still very shaken up after the ordeal and could do with a rest.”
“No,” the manager replied, his tone sharper than the request warranted.
“It’s all right, Celia girl,” her father cut in. “I am needed here. I shall have to make a statement, tell the sheriff what happened.”
Celia glanced from her father to the bank manager. There was something going on between those two, some undertone of hostility she failed to comprehend. Since the robbery, Mr. Northfield had been looking at her father with a dislike that bordered on disgust, even though the two of them had always been on cordial terms before.
“All right.” Celia attempted a bright tone. “I’ll get supper started. I’ll expect you home shortly, Papa.” She nodded to the men and walked out past the wiry sheriff. At the hitching rail outside, a bay gelding stood basking in the afternoon sun. Iron shackles and a coil of sturdy rope hung from the saddle, in readiness for a prisoner.
Tools of a man’s trade, Celia recalled thinking two weeks ago when she’d caught a glimpse of the pair of guns the outlaw with mismatched eyes wore beneath his long duster. And just like on that other occasion, a shiver of apprehension rippled over her.
Her hand crept up to her chest, to touch the small silk pouch where she wore the stranger’s gold coin on a string around her neck, like a keepsake to make sure they would meet again. But why dream of such an encounter, when an outlaw was like a hunted animal and any romantic interest in such a man could only bring a woman grief?
* * *
Footsteps thundered across the porch. Even before she hurried to the door, Celia knew it could not be her father, for a tired shuffle would announce his arrival. It was the barber, Mr. Grosser, a tall, rawboned man whose body always seemed to be listing to one side.
“Come quick, Miss Celia,” he said, even in his haste polite enough to snatch his hat down from his head. “I have your father at the back of my shop.”
Startled, she stared at the gangly barber. At the back of my shop. Rock Springs had no jail, and no marshal since Todd Lindstrom had been gunned down by rustlers a year ago. When someone needed to be detained, he was locked up in the small, windowless storeroom at the back of the barbershop, and kept there until he sobered up or, in the case of more serious crimes, until the county sheriff from Prescott arrived to fetch him.
“But why?” Celia implored. “Why?”
“Well, Miss Celia...” The barber turned his hat over in his hands. “They say he was in on the robbery. That he tipped off the gang of outlaws about all that gold in the bank and advised them how to go about stealing it.”
“W...what...?” After she’d overcome her startled reaction, indignation flared within Celia, like a flame licking at her insides. Her poor, sick father, to be bothered with such crazy accusations. “That is nonsense. Complete, utter nonsense.” She squared her shoulders, bracing for a confrontation. “Where is the sheriff?”
“He’s in the saloon, having his supper. When he’s finished, he’ll take your father to Prescott for a trial. It is a full moon tonight, light enough to travel after sunset.” Mr. Grosser replaced his hat on his head and turned to go. “Miss Celia, you’ll need to come quick if you want to see your father. I’m here against the sheriff’s orders. He does not want you to talk to your father, in case he might use you to pass a message to his accomplices.”
“Use me?” Her voice grew shrill at the incongruity of it. “To pass a message? To his accomplices?” Never had she heard such utter balderdash. Could this be some kind of a practical joke at her expense? Yes, that’s what it had to be. She’d play along, act her part as the hapless victim of the warped sense of humor of the citizens of Rock Springs.
Celia snatched her bonnet from a peg by the door, flung it over her upsweep and marched out, tying the laces beneath the chin as she tried to keep up with the barber’s long strides. On the normally quiet Main Street, a dozen people were loitering about in artificially casual poses, men flicking dust from their coat lapels, women pretending to be inspecting the displays in the store windows, while their true purpose was to steal covert glances at her.
Not looking left or right, Celia clattered up the steps to the boardwalk in her leather half boots. For an instant, she was forced to stand still while the barber bent his head to unlock his premises. The force of all those curious stares bombarded her in the back, like a flurry of Indian arrows landing between her shoulder blades.
Finally, the lock clicked open and the barber held the door wide while Celia stepped through. The pungent smells of cologne and shaving soap filled her nostrils. She’d never been to Mr. Grosser’s premises before. In normal circumstances, she would have enjoyed the opportunity to inspect such a bastion of masculine grooming, but today she paid scant attention to her surroundings.
The barber ushered her past the big leather chair to the rear of the shop and slid open the crudely made hatch in a thick, iron-studded oak door. Equipped with heavy steel hinges and twin bolts, the storeroom had been specifically reinforced to act as a place of detention.
“I want to go inside and talk to him,” Celia said.
“Sorry, Miss Celia. You must talk to him through the hatch.” The barber retreated to the front of the premises and busied himself by arranging the jars and bottles lined up on the mahogany cabinet behind his chair. He turned his back on her, offering an illusion of privacy, but Celia could tell he was keeping an eye on her through the big gilt-framed mirror mounted on the wall.
She pivoted on her feet to face the jail room and rose on tiptoe to peer through the hatch, positioned for a man’s height. Her father was sitting on the edge of a narrow cot. The room had no other furniture, only the cot, and beside it no more than two feet of empty space. Should a prisoner feel restless, he might take three steps toward the far wall, turn around and take three steps in the opposite direction, while trying not to trip up on the slop bucket in the corner.
“Papa!”
Her father glanced up. For an instant, Celia could see despair etched on his gaunt features. Then his lips curved into a shaky smile. Moving slowly, he got up and eased over to her. The hatch in the door framed his face, making him appear like the portrait of a dying man.
“Papa, what is this all about?”
“Well, Celia girl, they think I had something to do with this robbery. The bandit leader tried to shoot me, and the sheriff claims it is typical behavior for these outlaw gangs. They get a man inside to help them with the robbery, and then they kill him, so he can’t talk and give them away.”
“But that is nonsense! Anyway, the robbers didn’t kill you. The theory