Birdie leaned close and spoke too low for the sheriff to hear. “Listen, we got a plan. I got your trunks and a bag packed with your clothes and such and they’s loaded on the wagon. Tonight, Luther gonna bring his chain and horses and pull the bars outta the window. Then we’ll take you and Lucy to Louisiana, down on the bayou where we have kin. Won’t no one find you there.”
“Thank you, Birdie, but it wouldn’t work. Sheriff Boudreau is sleeping here tonight and he’d hear Luther. No point you two being in jail too. I need you to look after Lucy. You’re my only hope to help her.”
“I’ll sure enough look after her long as I’m able if...if you’re not here.” Birdie’s voice caught and she sounded like she choked back tears. She took a deep breath. “But I ain’t givin’ up. The Good Lord’s bound to have heard some of the prayers I been sendin’ up.”
Depression had stolen the last of Rosalyn’s faith. “Birdie, we may as well face it. There’s no way I can escape.”
“You keep on prayin’ and so will I. Lucy drawed you this picture. Now I got to get back ‘fore the misters come home.” Birdie passed the paper through the bars.
Tears ran down Rosalyn’s cheeks. “T-Tell her how much I love her. Make sure she doesn’t see the...the...” she shrugged, unable to say the word hanging.
Birdie wiped at her eyes with her sleeve. “I been tellin’ her you’re the best woman the Good Lord ever made, and she knows you love her.”
When Birdie had gone, Rosalyn looked at the drawing. Her daughter’s simplistic art showed a woman and little girl holding hands in a garden. How many times had she and Lucy walked among her plants, admiring blooms and the butterflies attracted to the flowers? Rosalyn sank to her cot and sobbed, not caring if the sheriff heard her. Past caring about her own sad life. Caring only for her precious daughter Lucy’s fate.
Living with her demanding parents had suffocated Rosalyn. She had longed for her own family—a loving husband and children. She’d been forced to surrender that dream when she gave in to her parents’ demands and married Robert Vandagraff. She’d tried to comply, to please everyone in her life, and look where that led her. Except for Lucy, she’d had no joy. Now she’d lost even her daughter. More, she’d lost her life.
The wind picked up and a gust fluttered the paper in her hands. Lightning flashed and rain blew through the open window. She moved to the other cot across the narrow cell. At least the rain didn’t hit her there.
The sky grew darker and clouds developed a greenish cast. Fine hairs on her arms prickled and raised. A peculiar sulphurous odor surrounded her.
“Sheriff, the sky looks ominous, like a tornado is coming.”
Sheriff Boudreau glanced up but didn’t rise from his chair. “Naw, wrong time of the year for a cyclone.” He went back to reading his newspaper, which is what he did most of the time as far as Rosalyn could tell. Either the man memorized the stories or he was the slowest reader ever born.
Dust and debris blew through the window’s bars and swirled around the cell. A horrific sound reached Rosalyn’s ears, like a freight train roaring toward town. She’d never been in a tornado, but she recognized the vibration from descriptions she’d heard. Instead of just dust and paper, now debris flew between the bars. A tin can hit her forehead with such force she fell back against the wall.
Her cot was bolted to the concrete floor, so she crawled underneath. The rumble grew louder, shaking everything. Rosalyn clung to the cot’s legs with white knuckles. Air whooshed from her lungs and she fought to breathe.
Lord, protect Lucy.
“Damn, take cover.” The sheriff hit the floor in an attempt to crawl into his desk’s kneehole.
BLUEBONNET BRIDE, Men of Stone Mountain book 3
Beginne am Anfang
