Chapter Forty

The anticipation filling the courthouse caught me by the throat. It was so thick you could have spread it on your sandwich. The room was packed with bodies, nearly every seat on every bench on both sides of the center aisle filled. I elbowed through the pack at the back of the room as well as I could. Only then could I get a view of the scene.

Wendell was not in the room, which meant Charlotte and Tumbleweed had managed to interrupt things before Judge Crawford had sent for Deputy Quincy to bring him. Charlotte and Tumbleweed stood beside the judge and Marshall Boggs at the front of the room. Charlotte’s face lit up as she saw me. She leaned toward the two men, and Marshall Boggs slipped behind the Judge’s bench and out a door. As per the plan, when all three outlaws were inside, he was to search their saddlebags behind the building.

As I had entered, Plunkett had found a seat near the wall on the left-hand side, halfway up. Hackensack, sat on the opposite side, where he had squeezed himself into an aisle seat beside a man in a black suit. He mopped his brow with a handkerchief, possibly waiting for a sign which Hackensack believed was coming. But where was Berger? I followed Hackensack’s eyes and saw him, jaw clenched as he watched his two accomplices unexpectedly arrive at the hearing which was supposed to signal their victory.

The stage was set. Though Berger could feel the trap tightening around him, I knew he wasn’t going to go down meekly.

I glanced back at Hackensack. His eyes were locked on the petite figure of Miss Camilla Wimberly. She sat in the front row on the opposite side of the courtroom, hands folded quietly in her lap across a distinctive and memorable yellow umbrella. Hackensack shifted and nearly elbowed the man beside him onto the floor. The man turned, and I nearly gasped aloud. There sat Pa, watching Tumbleweed with an amused expression on his face.

“There’s Eugene,” Charlotte called, waving me over. Just as she did, Hackensack twitched again and stood. Shrugging Pa aside like nothing more than clothes on a line, he advanced up the center aisle and approached Miss Wimberly in the front row. He knelt and lowered his voice, but the hundreds of us packed into that steamy courtroom could hear every word.

“Camilla,” Hackensack began, slipping a piece of paper from his front pocket, “I got something to say to you. I wrote it down so it sounds purty.” He unfolded the paper and cleared his throat. “You know how I feel about you. Like a budding apple blossom feels about the spring dew. Like a baby fawn with its wobbly little legs feels about its Ma. I love you.”

Tumbleweed shot me a devilish smirk. He, like all of us, was enjoying the show, wherever it ended up.

“I know you don’t feel the same way,” Hackensack continued. “Like you said that one glorious evening after the jamboree, if I set foot on your porch again, you’d break every bone in my body. But I know that was just your way of trying to push aside your true feelings.”

Miss Wimberly clutched at her umbrella, eyes wide as she stared at Hackensack. He leaned closer, his voice dropping too low for me to hear. I glanced back at Berger. His dark eyes were boring holes in the love-struck Hackensack. Whatever fuse had been burning for the past few minutes while he watched his two partners destroy his carefully-laid plans was getting ready to explode. Finally, he burst to his feet.

“Gerald, you shut your dad-blamed pie hole right this minute,” he boomed. But Hackensack’s trance wasn’t broken yet. With all the passion of Romeo in fair Verona, he reached out a meaty paw and clasped Miss Wimberly’s hand.

“I came back to see you. Never mind the fact that Trent sent for me. I don’t need Trent anymore. I got more money’n the Federal Reserve, and I reckon that’s enough for me and you to settle down together. Say you’ll be mine, Camilla.”

That did it. As Hackensack’s final remarks left his lips, Berger raised his pistol in the air. Though he hadn’t implicated Berger in anything criminal yet, Hackensack had confirmed his ties to Berger. The outlaw had to act now, or risk the love-struck Hackensack rambling his way into a confession. I prayed Marshall Boggs had found what he’d been looking for in the saddlebags by now.

At that moment, the windows of the courthouse were thrust open, and rifle barrels appeared. The room echoed with the sound of cocking hammers. Deputy Mars and his posse of armed Junctionites had sprung into action.

Berger stared at the barrels for a long second. He was surrounded on three sides. But he was angry. And that was enough. In a flash, he stuffed his pistol back into his belt and took off at a dead run toward the window nearest him.

As he ran, total bedlam erupted in the courthouse. There were horrified shrieks, irate yells, and a host of peace-loving Junctionites diving clear under their benches. Judge Crawford froze at the front of the room.

Berger thundered toward one of the empty windows, arms outstretched for exit. Just as he reached the window, the man in the black hat, my Pa himself, pastor of Mount Carmel Church, appeared before him like a black-suited angel of justice, teeth gritted with steely purpose. Pa drew back his fist clear to Utah and delivered a haymaker that caught Berger right across the jaw. The burly outlaw’s eyes blinked once, and he dropped like a lead bar to the courthouse floor. I let out a whoop and charged up the aisle toward Tumbleweed and Charlotte.

As for Hackensack, while justice was being served to Berger, he had remained calmly before Miss Wimberly, as though on another planet entirely. Suddenly, as Pa slugged Berger, Hackensack snapped into action and reached for her hand.

“Come with me, my apple blossom!” he yelled triumphantly.

Miss Wimberly raised her umbrella. Hackensack’s eyes widened, and he took a step backward. Before he could retreat, the Umbrella of Justice, Restorer of Truth and Defender of Frontier Ideals, was brought to bear upon Gerald Hackensack’s sizeable cranium. It collided with a meaty THWACK, then again. And again. Finally, the poor man flopped to the floor like a hooked trout and lay still.

My jaw dropped open, and I reached for Charlotte’s hand. “Let’s go!” I called. A body slammed into me. It was Alton Plunkett, the last of the Gang to remain upright. His lovely sapphire hat had fallen off, and he looked positively frantic as he brushed past us. Plunkett raced past me down the aisle, then swerved and headed toward the window on the opposite side of the room from Berger.

“He’s getting away,” I cried to Charlotte.

Out of nowhere, I saw Plunkett buckle and slow. On the floor lay a desperate Tumbleweed Thompson, dangling from the tail end of Plunkett’s impossibly long legs in an attempted tackle. But his angle had been wrong, the silk fabric of the sapphire dress was too slick, and Tumbleweed had slid down Plunkett’s legs to a heap around his ankles. Plunkett continued to walk, dragging Tumbleweed with him, down the row toward the window.

“Do something,” Charlotte cried. But too many Junctionites were cowering under their benches. Plunkett’s path was clear, and no rifles were stationed at the window ahead of him.

“I’ll never get there,” I said.

“Your slingshot!” Charlotte said.

My eyes widened. How had I forgotten? I reached for my back pocket and yanked the slingshot free. Charlotte dipped her hand into the pocket of her dress and placed a large red-and-white swirled marble into my palm.

I grinned. “You’re terrific. You know that?”

She smiled back and pointed at Plunkett. I dropped the marble onto the band of the slingshot, drew it back, and let fire.