As they all settled in around the fire, Mitch handed out a meager serving to each person. "I went through all the saddlebags and collected everything we have. It's got to get us through tomorrow, too, so I'm rationing it. I know it doesn't look like much, but it's the best I could do." Each person got one piece of hardtack and half a strip of jerky.
Minnie, whose stomach felt as if it was about to eat itself, stole a look at the miniscule serving and said, "A girl has to watch her figure, after all." Then she smiled her thanks and took a delicate bite of the hardtack.
Art swallowed his hart tack whole and then said to Minnie, "I suppose you want to know what's been going on." She nodded, and he pointed to the junior detective, "Mitch here told me he was a detective from San Francisco and that Wilcox was his superior. I contacted Wilcox to confirm."
Minnie, who could have sworn she'd already eaten her jerky, glanced down to find a piece still in her hand. Wondering at her own forgetfulness, she took a bite while she listened to Art talk.
"When Wilcox here got my telegraph," he said with a nod in the detective's direction, "he got on the next available train out of San Francisco. He went as far east as he could before getting a horse and coming north. The good detective strolled into the jail yesterday at lunchtime."
Minnie wasn't prepared to dance around the issue. She had to know. "Are you going to arrest me?"
Art started to say something, but the detective held out his hand to silence him. Giving his attention to Minnie, he said, "It was never my intention to arrest you. I knew you were innocent, but I also knew you were in danger. Keeping you under lock and key was the only way to make sure you stayed safe. You had to believe you were a suspect, though, so that you'd stay on alert. Otherwise, I was afraid you'd end up trusting the wrong people. And if Wong thought we were looking at you for the murder, even better. It might cause him to let his guard down, make a mistake. At the time it seemed like the best thing I could do for you and for the case."
"I was never a suspect?" Her voice was incredulous.
The detective shrugged. "You have every right to be angry at me, but I did it to protect you. If you're going to yell at me, I suggest you finish your beef jerky first."
Minnie peeked down at her hand where she held an uneaten piece of beef jerky. She could have sworn she'd already…
Pointing at the detective, she said, "I'm sure tomorrow I'll be thankful for what you did, but for now I'm too confused."
"Fair enough."
Smiling, Art said, "Mitch's last name is Wilcox."
Minnie's swiveled her head back and forth between the two California men. "I see a resemblance. Father and son?"
Mitch shook his head. "He's my uncle. I've admired him since I was a kid. That's why I went into police work. I wanted to grow up to be a man as good and honorable as he is."
"You saved my life," Minnie said to him. The young detective blushed and ducked his head.
"Yeah," Art said, "what happened? I couldn't see what was going on from where I stood."
Excitement and relief forced her words together and rushed them out of her mouth before she could stop them. "I-couldn't-see-you-but-I-heard-your-voice." Minnie shook her head and started over. "Jasper pulled his gun. My hands were tied to the pommel, and I figured if I tugged with enough force, the horse might take a step and ruin Jasper's shot. So I dug in my heels and pulled on the rope with everything I had." Nodding toward Mitch, she said, "That's when he shot Jasper."
Mitch picked up the story. "All I needed was the perfect shot, and I'm a patient man. My plan was to sever the rope so Minnie could get away, but I didn't want to shoot the horse if it could be avoided. Minnie pulled the rope back just right. It crossed over Jasper's leg, giving me the shot that would allow me to free her and hopefully disable him."
"Your uncle's words couldn't have been truer," said Art. "You are a crack shot." There was no doubt Mitch's skill had saved Minnie's life. "Not many men could have made that shot or would have been patient enough to wait for it."
Jasper was bound, gagged, and secured to a rock where they could all see him. He began hollering as they got to the part of the story where he got shot, but the gag muffled it, much to Minnie's relief.
She sent a glare in his direction before realizing she had something in her hand. Glancing down, she saw an uneaten piece of jerky held in her grasp. What?
"I think I must be more tired than I realize," she said softly, shaking her head.
"What was that, dear?" asked Art.
"Nothing," she answered before taking a bite of the jerky and then asking, "So how did you realize Jasper was crooked?"
The three men laughed.
Art, the first to get his laughter under control, said, "Well, here comes Wilcox, and I say, 'So you're here to execute the prisoners?' and he went along with it. Then I turn Mitch over to Wilcox, who drags him into the back alley. Mitch put up a good fight, too. Real convincing. They get through that back door, and Carl and me hear three gunshots. You should have seen the look on Carl's face. So I tell him, 'I know you've got a man here in Larkspur. Tell me who he is, and I might be able to get him to spare your life.'"
Detective Wilcox slapped his knee. "I came back in with my pistol still smoking. That boy saw me, and I swear he was about to wet himself. He still wasn't talking, though, so the sheriff here released Carl into my custody, and I started leading him toward the back alley. He screamed like a girl in pigtails the whole way, even grabbed onto the doorframe and wouldn't let go. You never seen a grown man blubber and carry on so much. The sheriff gave him one last chance to say who his inside man was, and he gave Jasper up faster than…"
"…faster than a bronco bucks!" yelled Art, still fighting his laughter.
Mitch picked up the tale then, saying, "We got to Jasper's, but he was gone. We assumed he went after you, so we went to your house. That's when we found Mrs. Smith and realized you'd been taken.
"If you were tracking us, how did you get ahead of us? Did you know we were in that little canyon?"
"We ran into some of Art's old friends," Wilcox said.
Minnie raised an eyebrow in question, and the detective and Mitch both eyed Art. It was clear they thought he ought to tell that part of the story.
"There was a small band of Nez Perce. They, uh, recognized Mutiny as one of their own."
"Because of his distinctive markings?" she asked.
Art nodded and said, "They'd seen you and Jasper and knew you were in the canyon. They gave us directions to where the canyon would feed back out so we could get ahead of you."
The other two men continued to watch Art until Minnie said, "I get the feeling there's more to this story."
"They, uh, seemed to want proof I'd come by Mutiny fair and square."
"How could you possibly prove that to them?"
Mitch tried to choke his laughter back, but Detective Wilcox had no such compunction. He guffawed and slapped his knee again.
Art gave the other two men a scowl before answering Minnie. "I told them how I'd come to own Mutiny. Turns out they'd heard the story of a white man whose horse picked him by trying to eat his hat."
Minnie gave the other two men a stern look and said, "Look on the bright side, gentlemen. How much worse would it have been if Mutiny had chosen him by biting his backside?"
Their laughter grew to near-hysteric proportions. She stared at the men as if they'd taken leave of their senses, but she understood what was going on around their campfire. Sometimes, after a long and stressful period, it felt good to laugh, plain and simple. "It's how we celebrate being alive," she said, her voice reverent.
"What was that, Minnie?" asked Art.
Shaking her head, she said, "Nothing, Arty. I was thinking out loud." Then looking down at her hand, suspiciously this time, she saw it was at long last empty. When Mitch's stomach growled from across the fire, she said, "You're still hungry? That was a lot more food than I was expecting. Who would have thought hardtack and jerky could be so satisfying?"
The detective's stomach growled next, and Minnie gawked at the men. Then her eyes fell back to her empty hand. "I didn't eat just the one piece of jerky, did I?"
The men all shrugged. Art answered, saying, "You were hungry, not to mention distracted enough not to notice."
Shortly after that, the men laid out three bedrolls. Minnie lay down in one to get some sleep, followed a short time later by the two men from San Francisco. Art stayed up to take the first watch, and Jasper, whose snoring was so loud not even the gag could silence it, remained propped against a rock where they'd left him.
****
Morning came, and the four of them split a can of beans and some more jerky. This time Minnie insisted they eat their own food. "I'm still quite full from last night, honest."
They even took the gag out long enough to feed Jasper some breakfast. As soon as they removed it, he started caterwauling about how much his leg hurt. "Ain't nothin' we can do 'bout it 'til we get you back to town. You're gonna have to suffer 'til then." Art drew out in a long, slow drawl. "It might serve you well to spend a little more time bein' thankful there's enough of you left for us to haul back to town."
Minnie, recognizing the voice as what she'd come to think of as his country bumpkin voice, gazed at Art and realized for the first time that she could see his coppery hair. "Where's your hat?" she demanded. His hat was normally pushed back on his head whenever he used that voice.
Art looked up at her as he was securing his bedroll to Mutiny. "My hat?" he asked.
"Yes, your hat," she said, not liking the way he broke eye contact.
"Yeah, Art, tell the lady what happened to your hat," Wilcox said, a jovial lilt to his voice. Mitch snickered, leading Minnie to eye the three men. Her niggling doubt grew into suspicion as Art continued to avoid eye contact.
"Sheriff," she said, putting some force into the title.
"Do you have to tap your foot so loud, Minnie? I didn't do anything wrong, honest." Hands on her hips, she continued to tap out a rapid rhythm while staring at him. Art ran both hands through his hair and let out a big sigh. "Those Nez Perce we ran into told us how to catch up to you and Jasper."
"So you gave them your hat?" she asked, skeptical.
"Yep, my hat."
"What on earth did they want with your hat?"
Mitch, normally the more reserved of the two men from San Francisco, guffawed so loud his horse sidestepped away.
Art gave him an icy look before turning his eyes back to Minnie. "Well, it appears the story of how Mutiny chose me is a popular one. They, uh, wanted my hat. It's not the same hat Mutiny bit, mind you, but they wanted it nonetheless. I guess you could say I bartered it so they'd give us the information we needed to get the drop on Jasper." Art hooked his thumb over in the former deputy's direction. "To save your life, I figured it was a fair enough trade," he said with a wink.
Minnie gave the other two men a look that silenced them and stepped up to Art. "I think that was very gentlemanly of you," she said before standing up on tip-toe to give him a kiss on the cheek.
****
After mounting up, they headed back toward Larkspur. Minnie rode with Art. Jasper was allowed to ride his own mount, but they kept him gagged and bound while using a lead rope to guide the animal. They rode as hard as they could throughout the day, not stopping unless necessary. The extra weight of Minnie and the necessity of being gentle with Jasper's mount meant they couldn't run the horses full out. Nonetheless, as the sun began to set in the sky, Minnie asked, "Are we going to be able to get home, or will we need to make camp?"
Art examined the sky and then pulled Mutiny up so he could speak to the other men. "We're two or three hours away. It'll be nightfall when we get there, but if we keep pushing, we can make it today. Only if you're both comfortable riding after dark on terrain you're not familiar with."
Wilcox said, "I'm fine with pushing through. We may need to take it a little slower once the sun goes down, but I'd rather get there late and sleep in a real bed tonight."
"Mitch, what about you?" Art asked. The younger man was the least experienced horseman among them.
He nodded and said, "I'm willing to push through as long as I'm not in the lead. If it gets too dark and we're nowhere near, we can always reconsider."
Art nodded to the men and urged Mutiny forward with greater speed as he continued leading the way toward Larkspur.
****
Not much more than an hour later, they heard two gunshots in the distance. "Shotgun, by the sound of it," Art said to himself.
He couldn't see where the shots were coming from, and there was no safe place to take cover. When a short time later they heard five more shots, the men all pulled their rifles from their scabbards and circled their horses trying to find the origin of the gunfire.
The last whisper of sunset drifted away on the breeze, and they were surrounded by darkness.
A rider approached. They heard him long before they saw him, giving everyone enough time to grow anxious and tense. The sound of hooves echoed around them, making it nearly impossible to distinguish the direction of the rider's approach.
Art was getting ready to fire into the night, hoping to warn off the intruder. Blind as they were, he didn't see a lot of other options. His finger flexed on the trigger as he took aim, hoping the bullet would land in front of where the rider approached.
"Ho there, Sheriff!!" came a yell. "Don't fire! I'm coming in closer! Although I'd feel a lot safer if you'd put those guns down."
"Show yourself first!" Art yelled back.
Approaching at a cautious pace, Dawson Williams brought his horse closer to their circle so they could see him. "It's okay," Art said, and the men sheathed their weapons.
"What are you doing out here, Dawson?" asked Art.
"The mayor put search parties together. We've been riding an hour out of town and then back nonstop since you guys left town."
"What was the gunfire we heard?"
Answering, Dawson said, "Two shots to signal you'd been sighted. The next shots were a count of souls coming back." They all wheeled their horses toward Larkspur and walked them at a more leisurely pace while Dawson continued to explain. "Riders were sent out in all directions. I was about ready to head back to town when I decided to take one more look through my spyglass." Shrugging, he said, "I thought it was a mirage at first. Didn't figure you'd be riding so late into the evening. Guess I would have, too, if I was this close to home."
"Lead the way, Dawson," said Art. "We're all tired. I think our mounts will pretty much follow wherever you go, so don't take us over any cliffs."
Dawson heeled his horse and took the lead. He picked up the pace but still kept them shy of a canter.
****
Before she knew it, Minnie was being pulled from Mutiny and wrapped in her father's warm embrace. He didn't say a word, simply held her tight for the longest time. When he released her, her mother was there to grab her next, asking, "Are you okay, dear?"
"I'm fine, Mum. I don't want to go through that again, but I'm okay."
Much of the town had come out to welcome them back, cheering them like heroes.
Mayor Smith, expression grim, told Art, "I'm taking my daughter home now, but I want you to come by tonight and fill me in on what happened. It doesn't matter how late." His look was somber. Glancing at Minnie and then back at Art, he said hoarsely, "I need to know what happened to my daughter out there."
Art rested his hand on the mayor's shoulder. "I've got to get Jasper secured at the jail, and Doc's going to have to tend his wound." He looked the mayor in the eye. "Minnie says he didn't lay a hand on her, not like that. If he had, you'd have heard four gunshots tonight instead of five."
Relief flooded the mayor's eyes. "You'll never know how grateful I am to you for bringing her safely home. Come by later. I still want to hear about what happened, but thank you for answering the question I didn't want to ask."