Jesse’s stomach churned, and he moaned. It wasn’t just his gut causing him pain. His skull was thumping, about half killing him. He turned over on the hard floor, where he must have fallen out of his chair, and curled up. Arms hugged around his aching guts, and he squinted his eyes tight shut while wishing the nausea would go away. The door slammed. Then a floorboard creaked near his ear. A strong hand smacked at his face. When his eyes rolled open, Sheriff Crosson was hunkered over him, and the man’s face was livid.
“What the hell?” Sheriff Crosson’s deep voice thundered inside the small room.
Jesse figured he was about to hear some cussing while he got the worst tongue-lashing of his life. Sheriff Crosson grabbed him with both hands and jerked him off the floor. He wavered a minute, then retched all over himself. The putrid odor hit him worse than the slimy, milky sight of it, and Jesse cupped his mouth to keep from vomiting a second time. Sheriff Crosson quickly let go.
Jesse’s knees buckled, and he timbered toward the floorboards. The sheriff caught him by the scruff with a jerk and dragged him stumbling out the door. He gave Jesse a toss, rolling him through the snowy yard. Jesse lay flat out on his stomach, and before he could gather his wits to move a muscle, he was yanked up again and dragged toward the corral. There was nothing he could do but try to keep up and not fall. He wasn’t about to open his mouth and say a word, or the sheriff might just feed him a fist.
Sheriff Crosson abruptly stopped, swung one of his legs, and took Jesse’s feet out from under him. His knees hit the dirt next to the horse trough. The sheriff grabbed a fistful of hair, and Jesse’s head was thrust through the skimming of ice crusted over the freezing water. Pulled back by his scalp, Jesse gulped for air.
“Damn you, boy.” Sheriff Crosson sank Jesse’s head a second and third time.
The groggy morning was washed out of his ears, and Jesse struggled to grab hold of his spinning world. He spit water while trying to suck air. “Stop!” he slurred. Sheriff Crosson was drowning him.
The sheriff shoved Jesse away, and he hit the ground and lay there gulping in the stinging cold air. His wet hair started to harden, and he shivered.
Sheriff Crosson hunkered down, pointing a finger, poking Jesse in the chest. “You’re damn lucky Tipsy didn’t find you.”
Jesse looked about. Where was his rifle? The whiskey had made him forget about Tipsy.
“You hear me, son?” Sheriff Crosson jerked him up by the shoulders, shook him a few times, and looked as if he might wring Jesse’s neck.
Jesse nodded that he’d heard.
Sheriff Crosson seized him by the coat collar and wrenched Jesse to his feet. “Kate is a blubbering, bawling mess with worry, and Nathanial ain’t much better.”
Nathanial. Tipsy. All of it rushed back to Jesse in an instant. “I shot the doctor.” He stood there swaying while trying to hold his own and looked away as he blinked back tears. It was just hard to believe that he had snuffed out a living being.
Sheriff Crosson cupped Jesse’s face in one hand and held him steady. They stood eye to eye. “Wearing that badge means you’ll likely find yourself killin’ a few more men. Are you gonna crawl into a bottle and cry every time you take some no-account’s life?”
“I killed him.” Jesse said it as if the sheriff were hearing it for the first time. The doc’s lifeless body sprawled out on that dirty saloon floor would forever hold its place in Jesse’s memory. “Do you remember the first man you killed?”
Sheriff Crosson jerked Jesse closer, nose to nose. “I don’t care. If that man was helping Tipsy, well then he wasn’t worth much. Nathanial is at home, scared to death that Tipsy might come for him while I’m out huntin’ you, and when I left, he was cryin’ his eyes out ’cause he thinks you’re dead. So all I care about is getting you home. You might not see it this way, but you ain’t alone in this world no more and you gotta start thinkin’ about others.”
Jesse was clutched by the arm and dragged into the barn where his horse stood saddled and waiting. Sheriff Crosson tossed him onto the Appaloosa. Not that he wanted to rile the sheriff’s anger any further, but hell, Jesse couldn’t sit no horse and hold on. His wits weren’t with him, and he still wasn’t seeing too straight.
Sheriff Crosson swung a leg over the bay and held Dapple’s reins. “Don’t fall off, or I might just leave ya to freeze.” The sheriff paused. “His name was Jonas Brooks. A hired gunman. I was a deputy at the time, and there’d been lots of fightin’ goin’ on between some cattlemen and sheepherders. Brooks drew first, but I was faster. If I hadn’t killed him, others, innocent folks, might’ve gotten killed in that range war. That’s the way I see it, and I ain’t ever lost a minute of sleep.”
The sheriff spurred his horse.
Jesse slumped forward, holding himself steady against the saddle horn. His eyes were heavy and body cold from the water that had soaked him and was now freezing in his clothes. The rotgut whiskey kept his stomach churning. None of that was nearly as painful as the misery of all the trouble he’d caused by feeling sorry for himself.
Nate waited by the window, biting at his nails while watching for Pa to come home with Jesse. Where were they? Had Tipsy shot them both down? Nate wiped away his tears. What if Jesse and Pa needed help? Nate was a deputy, and the mustang was the fastest horse in the territory. No way could Tipsy catch him on Buck.
“Ma, I’m goin’ to my room to read awhile.” One little white lie wouldn’t hurt anyone—unless Tipsy got his hands on Nate. He started for the stairs. A wee bit of guilt panged him but not enough to stop him. He’d explain his way out of trouble after he fetched Pa and Jesse home.
Ma rocked Elizabeth and put a finger to her lips for Nate to hush. Elizabeth’s eyes were almost closed. Ma was completely distracted. It couldn’t have worked out any better for him to sneak out.
He tore off up the stairs, then quickly layered himself in extra shirts since his coat was hanging downstairs by the door. When he eased open the window, that creak seemed loud. Had Ma heard him? He stood listening. Downstairs, the rocking chair methodically seesawed.
A stream of cold air pushed at him as if it were a warning for him to stay inside. He stepped out onto the snowy porch roof, thinking there was plenty of daylight left.
Nate scurried to the edge, swung down from there, and caught hold of the end post underneath, sliding downward. Before Ma could find his room empty, he snuck around the back of the house, jumped the picket fence, and ran across the yard toward the barn.
When he had Buck saddled, which hadn’t been easy and had taken more time than Nate expected, he slipped out the rear of the barn so Ma wouldn’t see and call him back.
Nate hurriedly kicked Buck into a run up through the hills. When Jesse hadn’t returned in a reasonable time, Pa had paced the floor with a terrible fretful look, going on about sending him alone to the old trading post. Ma had listened with tears in her eyes. North of the old trading post was the Blue Sky Mountain. Miles upon miles of wild land for a man to hide if he was running from trouble. Whether Tipsy was hightailing it away from Jesse or the other way and Jesse was maybe hurt and doing the running, the Blue Sky Mountain was a sensible start.
The flurried wind cut through the layering of shirts and made his skin bump up with goose pimples. If he shivered any harder, he might lose grip on the reins and fall off Buck. The Blue Sky Lake at the top wasn’t too far off, and he hadn’t seen so much as a deer track yet.
Was it the wind whistling through the trees or did he hear voices? Nate reined in and listened closely. Laughter floated in the air, and there were more than two voices, none of them deep. It wasn’t Pa and Jesse doing all the shouting. Oh yeah, his friends were playing at the lake today. He had forgotten.
He trotted the mustang up to the water’s edge. His buddies all waved at him from out on the ice, near the middle. The lake, but one small spot, was completely frozen.
“Come on,” one of them hollered, and they all motioned.
They’d been playing crack the whip until he appeared and interrupted. Being out on the ice did look like fun. He couldn’t though. He was hunting Jesse and hadn’t figured on being away so long. Pa would certainly warm Nate’s hide if he was found outside the house for any reason. Maybe he should just ride home.
His friends stopped their play and skated toward him. Johnny led the way. “Thought you weren’t allowed to come today.”
Nate shrugged. “I snuck out,” he admitted without offering the real reason why. No need to scare his friends. He hadn’t seen any sign of Tipsy.
“You’re the smallest of us. You can be the end of the whip. I bet if we spin fast enough, we can zing you better than halfway across the lake.” Johnny’s thick stature was a replica of his pa, Big John. Out of the five of them, Johnny was by far the biggest, and next was Lenny, taller than Johnny but not as stout. They were the first two in the link of arms that made up the length of the whip. Neither of them was ever on the end. Nate was always the tip, which was lots of laughs.
“Norman’s too big of a crybaby when we git to spinnin’ fast,” Phillip complained and turned to punch Norman in the arm. Lenny’s little brother was red-eyed and wiped at his tears.
The fun looked good, and Nate hadn’t had much enjoyment lately. What was the chance that Tipsy would be at this very lake looking for him? Probably slim to none, and Nate liked those odds. The Blue Sky Lake was high up in the mountain, not a place he’d be easily followed or that Tipsy would even think to look. That louse was likely holed up somewhere, keeping warm.
Nate dropped out of the saddle, telling himself he wouldn’t stay too long. He would bet Pa had found Jesse.
Nate got flung and slid across the ice time and time again. Laughter was thick in the air. He was whipped once more and this time Norman with him. They both fell, and Nate skidded flat on his back, plowing a trail through the dusting of fresh-falling snow that covered the frozen lake water. Good thing he had all those shirts on to pad his stitches. They itched a little but didn’t hurt. His feet were numb though.
Norman stood and gave him a hand up. They skated toward the others, where he then linked his arm to Norman, who linked to Phillip, Lenny, and Johnny. Johnny began to spin them faster and faster until they were really flying. Nate lost his grip on Norman and flew away and fell facedown as he spun farther out across the ice. He couldn’t stop and kept sliding too fast toward the soft spot.
He slowly coasted to a stop and stayed lying very still. His boots were mere inches from the chilled open water. If his heart pounded any harder, it might break through the thin ice underneath him. If he were to shift his weight even slightly to the right or left, it could turn into one hell of a cold swim. How was he going to get out of that spot? The thought of maybe drowning shook him until his breathing came in ragged gasps. The ice under him creaked loudly, and closely following that, Nate felt a slight displacement and tightened up even more. He wasn’t breathing at all, and tears blurred his eyes.
“Git out of there!” his friends all hollered.
Nate carefully inched, slowly bellying along the ice, away from the open water. Phillip and Lenny crawled, slithering toward him. They were still too far away for Nate to reach either hand and be pulled to safety. A large crack echoed across the lake, and the ice shifted. Nate held his breath, waiting to plunge under.