Chapter Thirty-Six
Marston's eyes flew open when the sound of thundering hooves reached his ears over the noise of the cheering crowd. His lungs were burning at this point and his vision was blurry but there was no mistaking the large black bodies barreling his direction.
A stampede of cattle heading straight for the gallows and the crowd gathered around them.
Panicked cries replaced the cheering. The onlookers began to flee in all directions. Those on the gallows not attached to a rope, leapt down and ran for their lives.
Stupid cows.
Now Marston five minutes of fame were going to be forgotten and no one was going to even see him strangle to death—or maybe he wouldn't strangle. Maybe a cattle horn would finish him off before lack of oxygen did. They were getting closer and within the next twenty or thirty seconds he was going to be gouged to death or trampled when they barreled over the gallows.
It seemed that old Langston had a sense of humor. The ride wasn't over yet. It was going to end when a two foot horn went up his ass.
Marston began fighting against the ropes at his neck and wrists with all his might but it was useless. He was stuck fast and his consciousness was beginning to fade.
"How about we get you down from there?" Marston heard a familiar voice behind him say. He turned to see Duke standing there with a grin on his weather worn face as he cut the rope Marston was hanging from.
Duke's arms instantly wrapped around Marston went the rope broke free to keep the man from crashing to the ground. Marston cried out with pain as Duke's fingers dug into his festering back. The gulps of air suddenly entering his lungs made him dizzy and Marston was too weak to offer much help but somehow managed to find himself atop Duke's horse.
"Hang on to me," Duke warned, as he slid in front of Marston.
Marston clung to Duke and they managed to get away from the gallows and the chaos just before thousands of pounds of cattle went careening into them, shattering the rickety structure and turning it to nothing but splinters.
"Duke.. I can't escape," Marston warned, barely holding onto consciousness as he held on tight to his friend. His lungs were aching and his head was spinning.
"Why the hell not?" Duke demanded. "I went through a lot of trouble to get you free."
"He'll come after...Rose.." Marston's head drooped lower as his shoulders sagged.
"I already took care of that, old friend," Duke assured him. "Marston Jacobs is a dead man. Now quit your bitchin' and stay on the horse. I'm gonna take you to old Snelly and she'll fix you right up."
Marston grunted. Old Snelly was a bent and crooked old woman who was frank and harsh and looked worse than she smelled. She'd been patching up outlaws for years—probably since the Mayflower had landed on the shores of the New World.
"I'll probably die before we get there," Marston warned.
Duke chuckled. "Probably will. But I'll try to get you there just the same."
***
Marston's dreams of Rose were unpleasantly interrupted by the strong scent of rotten eggs. What the hell was that smell?
He was lying on his side and he shifted slightly before opening his eyes and letting out a yell that nearly shook the thin glass windows.
The face that was an inch from his own was what little children's nightmares were made of. The old woman's wrinkles had wrinkles and they cut through her sun-leathered skin like scars. Her blue eyes were yellowed with age and they sunk deep back into her head. Her nose was large, bulbous and covered in age spots. A toothless grin revealed blackened gums and a bit of drool hanging off a paper-thin lip.
"Well that explains the smell," Marston muttered.
Old Snelly cackled loudly and stood to her full height which was about four and a half feet with that hump on her back. The ends of her gray hair dragged the dirty floor as she walked around the bed. "You're finally back in the land of the living. I was getting worried about you after nearly ten days."
"Ten days!" Marston exclaimed and then he winced at the pain in his parched throat. "I've been here that long?" he whispered.
Snelly shuffled across the floor of her tiny shack and began ladling soup from a pot over the stove into a small bowl. "Yes sir. Ten long days Old Snelly has been cleaning your wounds and pouring broth down your throat to keep you alive. I wasn't about to let you die. No sirree. You've always been too handsome and I couldn't have stood it if you'd stopped breathing."
Marston shivered. He wasn't sure what bothered him more. Learning that he'd been out for ten days, knowing that her crooked fingers had been touching him all that time or hearing that she thought him handsome.
"What happened?" Marston asked as he struggled to sit up. His body felt sluggish and weak. A roar burst from his mouth when he put pressure on his right hand and felt the lightning bolt of pain.
Snelly's gnarled hand shot out and fell across the back of his head. "Stop that!" she scolded. "You lay there and I'll feed ya."
"Don't boss me. I'm a grown damn man," Marston grumbled but he was too tired and sore to put up much of a fight. His back pulsed, his hand hurt, his head ached and whenever he moved his neck the pain was nearly unbearable.
Snelly wagged her nearly invisible eyebrows. "Trust me when I say that Old Snelly noticed you're a grown man."
Marston gagged and glanced around the tiny one room shack. "Open up," Snelly snapped and Marston turned back to her to discover a wooden spoon full of soup an inch from his face.
Marston wanted to tell the woman to go to hell and insist that he could feed himself but he was too weak to fight and Snelly was a stubborn old bat. "What the hell happened to me?" Marston asked, the events of the day of his hanging were hazy in his mind and he couldn't quite remember them.
Snelly pressed the spoon to his lips and Marston allowed her to pour them in. He chewed on the chunk of meat and carrots and was surprised by how good it tasted. Then again, he had been a while without a decent meal so he was sure that just about anything would have tasted gourmet.
"You were in jail," Duke's deep voice rumbled as the man entered the shack.
Marston's eyes narrowed. Duke? Memories flooded Marston. The hanging. The faulty knot. The stampede. Duke cutting him down.....
Forgetting all about pain and weakness, Marston sat up quickly, overwhelmed with panic—which was a fairly new emotion for him. "Rose!" he exclaimed. "Duke, you helped me escape and now they'll go after Rose and the kids!"
Marston hissed in pain when the wooden spoon Snelly had been using to feed Marston, fell sharply across the back of his head. "Lie down!" she hissed impatiently. "You've made your back bleed again!"
"I don't have time to worry about that," Marston insisted.
Duke stepped forward. "Marston don't worry about Rose and the children. They're with Jeremiah on a trip to the Dakotas and I'd say they're more than halfway there by now."
Snelly gently pushed Marston back down onto his side as he felt blood seep through his loose shirt. "Why is Jeremiah taking my family to the Dakotas?" Marston asked just before Snelly shoved another spoonful of soup into his mouth. The spoon connected sharply with his teeth and a shockwave of pain went racing through his aching head. Marston glared at him but she only offered a toothless grin in response.
"Because you have a lot of enemies, my friend, and because Jeremiah has a place up there."
Marston remembered the deed he'd won in the poker game but he was still confused. "But even Jeremiah can't hide them from the law, Duke. Every crooked lawman around will come for them now that I escaped Marshall Montgomery."
Duke shook his head and perched himself on the rickety table. "I told you I took care of that. Marston Jacobs is a dead man."
"In order to fall for that they would have needed a body, Duke, and mine is right here in one piece... more or less."
"In one piece thanks to me. You would do well to mind what I say from now on," Snelly grumbled.
Marston rolled his eyes and accepted another spoonful of stew. "I took care of the body, Marston," Duke assured him. "When they cleaned that mess they found a seven foot tall tree of a man with a rope around his neck, whipmarks on his back and a big beard on his face. I don't think they'll look any closer than that—after all they believe you had a gallows collapse on top of you and a hundred head of cattle trample you to death."
Marston stared at Duke without blinking for several long moments. "Who the hell did you kill?"
Duke shrugged as he pulled a coin from his pocket and rolled it between his fingers. "I don't know. I needed someone to pass off as you and there he was."
Marston wanted to feel guilty. He should feel guilty. But all he could think was that he was alive and free to return to his wife and children.
"But how did you do it?" he asked.
"Rose told Jeremiah and I you were in Millerton. I rode into town the night before your hanging and I heard you talking to that deputy about why you couldn't escape. At first I was just going to write you off as a lost cause but then I thought about Rose and the baby she was carrying and knew I couldn't do that. So I had to think of a way to kill you without killing you."
Marston took a moment to let that sink in. "I suppose I owe you one hell of a thank you then."
Duke snorted. "You know I hate those words."
Marston smiled broadly. His first real smile in weeks—then the smile disappeared. "But if you aren't hiding Rose and the children from the law then what enemies were you talking about?"
Duke sighed and shoved the coin back in his pocket. "You got sloppy when you killed Gilliam. Vincent was still alive when someone showed up the next morning."
Marston growled. "But I shot that bastard in the chest!"
"Well you should have shot him twice. He got to town, got patched up and was more than happy to tell the law all about you—he left out any part of his own wrong doings. Branded you a kidnapper and murderer and helped put your face on a brand new poster. Jeremiah and I heard that that crazy brother of his, Frank, was assembling a gang to hunt you down. That's why we rode like hell to get to your cabin and realized you were gone."
Marston clenched his fists. "I guess I'll just have to hunt the bastards down and kill them."
"I don't think you will," Duke countered sharply.
"I wish folks would quit telling me what to do," Marston snapped. "I'm a grown man."
Marston nearly choked on the next mouthful of stew Snelly shoved roughly into his mouth as Duke stepped forward and stuck his finger under his nose. "Yeah and I just risked my neck and went to a hell of a lot of trouble so you could go back to your wife and kids. But go ahead, go ride after a whole blood thirsty gang and get yourself shot to death. Who cares about Rose, Langley, Kaitlyn and that unborn babe? Certainly not you. You're Marston Jacobs and you don't care about anyone but yourself."
Marston puffed up, fully prepared to give the man a piece of his mind but he felt himself deflate when he realized Duke was right. It would be suicide to go riding after that gang alone and Marston had too much to live for to go committing suicide.
Duke seemed to notice the quiet calm of acceptance in Marston's demeanor and he nodded. "Now that you're thinking a little more clearly let me say that the odds of Vincent or his brother finding you and the family up in the Dakotas are slim to none. I happen to know that they never leave Texas, Louisiana and New Mexico and they'd never think to look for you that far north."
Marston nodded but said nothing. Duke smiled. Marston always had hated to have anyone tell him he was wrong.
Snelly batted her eyelids. "I won't tell a soul I know where you went."
"Maybe I'll kill you just to be sure," Marston grumbled.
"No you won't," Snelly countered, waving her finger. "Who would patch you up the next time you get yourself strung up by a rope?"
Marston ignored her and focused on Duke. "I want to leave in the morning."
Snelly shook her head. "Nope."
Marston glared. "What do you mean nope? I'm ready to see my family."
Snelly simply shrugged, unbothered by his grouchiness. "It will be several weeks before you're fit to travel. That back is in bad shape and your hand is broken."
Marston's gaze went up to the ceiling. "And here I thought I was in perfect health," he muttered.
Duke's low chuckle rumbled throughout the shack. "You have to do what the woman says, Marston. Stay down a few weeks. Hell, you can't even get out of that bed and on a horse on your own yet. If you tried to ride hard for three weeks to reach the Dakotas in the shape you're in now, you'd die before you got there."
Marston hated Duke. He hated him because he was right. Marston didn't have the strength to make it out the front door; getting to the Dakotas was out of the question.
"How long?" Marston snapped, turning his gaze to Snelly.
She tapped a crooked finger against her wrinkled chin. "Three weeks," she said, setting down his bowl and grabbing up a stack of bandages from the table. "Three weeks should give this back time to heal and allow you to build up some strength."
Marston growled. He knew he was a terrible patient but he didn't do sick or weak well and, dammit, he wanted to go home to his family. He supposed though that if anyone could handle his grouchiness it was the grizzled old lady currently tearing his old bandages off his back with a vengeance.