––––––––
In the front of the theatre, Gideon’s pistol ran dry, and he struggled to reload it before the rifle butt of a passing horseman sent him to the ground. The pain exploded in Gideon’s skull, eyesight blurred, hearing muffled, stomach instantly nauseous. And as he looked up, struggling to regain control of those strained senses, working enough to decode only two bits of information: It was somebody Gideon recognized who’d struck him, and he was in the man’s deadly grip.
Gideon looked up, finally making out the familiar bald head and round, angry sneer. “Bauer!” Gideon choked out, the big man’s arm wrapped around his neck. “Bauer, what are you doing?”
“What my other boss couldn’t do,” Bauer said, squeezing harder, the blood cut off from Gideon’s brain. “Taking this town over once and for all, and putting you and your family six feet underground.”
“Hey!” The youthful, familiar voice cut through the clamor of the battle and both Gideon and Bauer looked up to see Dale standing above them. “Get away from my reverend!” With that, Dale slammed his foot into Bauer’s head, a sharp kick that nearly sent the man reeling back.
Nearly.
A second kick properly distracted Bauer and allowed Gideon to fall forward and out of his grip. Bauer turning on Dale and rising to meet him; a foot taller, a hundred pounds heavier. Dale swung his fist and landed a good hit on Bauer’s face, but it barely registered a response, nor a second punch.
In that terrible moment, Dale realized he was outmatched, and that he had no way to overpower the giant he’d riled and drawn inextricably toward him. So Dale turned to run, but something inside him told him instantly that this was a mistake.
The fist on the back of his collar confirmed it.
Bauer picked Dale up and threw him across the yard, almost into the path of an oncoming speckled mare. Dale stopped short of being trampled, the thunderous hooves thumping and pounding the ground just near his head. He rolled over and threw himself back at the big, burley man, and it was like charging the side of a mountain. Dale would have snapped back if Bauer hadn’t grabbed him tight, arms wrapped around Dale’s young chest, lifting him up and squeezing tighter, the air pushed out of Dale’s lungs. Dale dangled, stunned in his captor’s grip. Then he began gasping for air, eyes bulging, mouth open, tongue turning blue and creeping out of his mouth. Dale realized his own demise was only moments away, so he began to thrash and kick, like some huge fish in Bauer’s grip. As he writhed and struggled. One knee found a swift target in Bauer’s crotch, and the big man released a shocked gasp of his own, before falling to his knees and releasing Dale to stagger away and catch his breath.
Horatio rammed Bauer from behind, the two men tumbling and exchanging punches. Horatio landed a few good knocks to Bauer’s face and even one to the top of his head to stun the giant. Once neutralized, he looked down at the big brute. “Bauer, listen to me, listen to me!” The stunned beast Bauer looked up at Horatio, gripping his collar. “Bauer, what’s the matter with you? Why are you doing this?”
Bauer looked up, the crackling flames of the theatre casting his bald, round head in an orange glow, as if he’d just emerged from the bowels of hell itself. He said, “Revenge! Sheriff Vance left me for dead!”
But Horatio said, “No, Bauer, the sheriff was in that tobacco man’s pocket the whole time. Anything you think the sheriff did, that man Francis James did! He’s the one who betrayed you, Bauer, not the sheriff, not the people of Franklin!” Bauer lay there, the chaos dwindling around him. “Franklin loved you, Bauer, gave you a place, a purpose, a position of power and importance. Franklin trusted in you, Deputy Sheriff Bauer, but that plantation owner turned you against us, against yourself!”
Bauer lay there, eyes glazing over, staring off.
By this time the theater itself was ablaze, anything still inside had seconds to get out before being trapped forever. Katherine looked around from astride her horse, shooting the last of her shots before seeing Gideon staggering around the front yard. She rode over to him and, instead of jumping off her horse and to his side, she rode up and pulled him to her, his reserve strength drawn instinctively to the act of pulling him up and into the saddle.
“Ida?” Gideon called out. “Where’s Ida?”
Katherine looked around, no sign of the youngest Wallace anywhere. “She must be ‘round back,” Katherine said, the two leaving the battle in front to investigate events in the rear.
Galloping that horse around to the rear of the burning building, Katherine was shocked by what she found. Expecting more gunplay, horses stirring and galloping she found an almost tranquil scene, several still horses gathered around a single figure, bent and twisted.
Francis James.
Katherine and Gideon rode up and stopped their horse with the others; Bal and Selma, Ralph, even Ida.
She saw Gideon and Katherine ride up and called out, “Daddy,” kicking her horse, the beast taking her right to the side of the horse her parents were riding. Ida hugged Gideon and Katherine, each leaning to the side of their mount.
“Thank God you’re all right,” Gideon said, turning back to Katherine. “I told you both to go directly home.” After a stern silence, he added, “Thank you for disobeying me.”
Ida looked around, “Where’s Horatio?”
“In front,” Gideon said, “but he’s fine, the fighting’s winding down.”
Ida kicked her horse and it carried her to the front of the building. Gideon called out, “Ida, wait!” Gideon kicked his own horse and it rode to follow Ida, but Katherine slid off the side of the horse and to the ground. Gideon turned to her, confused, but she said, “Go, see to the kids!” Gideon looked at her, uncertain, then at her allies, in control of the ground, before turning to ride off after his daughter and her young man in the front of the burning theatre.
In front of the building, Horatio asked Bauer, “Where’s the sheriff now, Bauer? Where’s Sheriff Vance?”
Bauer couldn’t concentrate. He couldn’t forget the look on the sheriff’s eyes when he pulled that gun, the shocked expression as he snapped back; eyes wide, mouth gaping.
Bauer realized then that he’d murdered his best friend, mentor, and employer, and an innocent deputy, at the behest of a cruel and brilliant man. And that man was not far off.
Bauer pushed Horatio off of him and drew himself to his feet, staggering off just as Ida came riding up, her father not far behind her. Ida practically spilled off her own horse and to the ground, falling into Horatio’s arms. From his mount, Gideon surveyed the battle on the front lines, strewn with bodies and even a few horses. The aggressors had fallen, the defenders prevailed, though at a terrible cost, as the burning theatre attested.
Glancing around, Gideon realized that he didn’t see any sign of Stanton, Sally, or Dale anywhere.
***
It had been just a few minutes before, when the flames started to overtake the theatre. Garret was dead, and Stanton knew it was time to abandon the place and take the fight outside. He called out, “Sal, let’s get a move on!” and threw out another few shots of lead before reloading the gun. “Sal, let’s hear from ya!” No answer came.
Stanton scurried around the lobby to the side of the bar, where Sally’d been stationed. She’d been quiet for the past few minutes, and when Stanton saw her, he knew why.
Sally lay on her back, eyes wide, a bullet hole in her cheek, another in her chest, the pistol still in her hand. When Stanton saw her, his heart felt like it was collapsing in his chest. A cold hollow feeling began to overtake him from within, his limbs going cold and hard, numb. Hard to move as he stood there looking down as she was gazing up; eyes big and loving, her lips forever silent, forever pleading for his love, his and his alone.
Stanton bent down, at first intent on lifting Sally up and carrying her out of the burning theatre, the flames already filling the place with a pulsing, prickly heat. She was heavy, dead weight, and touching her sent a bolt of paralysis through him. Instead of lifting her up, his large frame collapsed at her side. Instead of slipping his arms under her body to lift, they wrapped around her to embrace, one last time.
Sally, he thought to himself, to her, as he pulled her close, the flames growing and getting closer from every side. You really were the one, after all these years. I’m sorry I couldn’t love you the way you wanted to be loved, the way you need to be loved. I just never knew what that meant, love.
But I know now, my sweet Sally, my poor love gone, I know now what we had, what we lost, what we could have had, were it not for all those other things, other people, other choices, bad choices, mistakes ... I’m so sorry, Sally, so sorry ...
But his sorrow finally overtook Stanton’s ability to think, his final confession echoing in the emptiness of his heart as the heat finally became too much, the flames too close. They caught Sally’s dress first, quickly enveloping the satin and exposing the hoops beneath. With a whoosh, those flames jumped to Stanton’s jacket, his muttonchops helping to spread to that insatiable fire over Stanton and his dead lover both. He screamed and howled in pain; an agony that bolted down to the very core of his soul. But it wasn’t the fire causing his agony, it wasn’t the fact that he was burning alive; but that he was drowning in his own tears.
***
In the back of the burning structure, Francis James stood surrounded by the angry denizens of Franklin, Ohio. They stared down from their horses, having captured the ringleader of the men who’d come to burn their town and kill them in their sleep.
Katherine was on her feet too, the only one on the same ground as the fallen villain. She approached him and the horses stepped back, but their riders had guns trained on their vanquished enemy. Any one of them would be happy to pull the trigger on him once and for all.
She took a closer look at him. She hadn’t seen him since that terrible night at his plantation, when he’d lost the face-down between himself, Katherine, and the others. That was the night Ida set his slaves loose, and left them to nearly beat James to death. He’d been a hulking giant when she saw him last, or so he had appeared; fighting off several people at once, facing down his own enemies and demons, within and without. He’d been an instrument of terror, consumed by his own power and greed and disregard for any human life other than his own. He was evil incarnate, the true Antichrist, it had seemed to Katherine.
But now he was reduced, one arm bent and unmoving against his side, one shoulder still crooked up from what appeared to be a badly healed broken neck. His jaw didn’t seem to move easily and his voice was a watery lisp that left drool running down one side of his mouth. One eye was always half-closed and didn’t blink with the other. He no longer stood completely upright, giving him the look of a hunchback. He seemed deformed, broken.
Because he was.
Katherine looked him over, seeing at once that the man had been destroyed by his own sin. She knew that God had allowed him to face trials that would show him out to be what every sinner is; weak, vulnerable, human. She looked closer at that statue of misery to see a warning to herself and to all: They all were capable of sin, and they all had to be vigilant against it, lest they become what this deplorable man had become; a wretch, a troll, a spent and hobbled thing, outcast and ruined.
Bal asked, “What are we going to do with him?”
“He has to be killed,” Selma said, hard and cold. “A man like this will never be brought to justice ... he owns justice! And the Bible is clear: ‘He that smitten a man, so that he die, shall be put to death.’ Exodus, 21:12.”
Francis James looked up at his would-be executioners. He didn’t seem afraid to Katherine, though he didn’t seem eager to die either. Katherine had the distinct impression that he didn’t really think they were going to put him against the wall or hang him from the highest branches, even though scarcely a person there would be able to argue against it.
All but Katherine. She said to the others, “No, we can’t just kill him.”
“It’s not murder,” Selma said, “but execution.”
Katherine asked, “What happened to your new Christian humility?”
Selma asked in response, “Where’s all your fiery Irish spirit?”
Katherine shook her head. “We’ll be no better than he is. And of all of us here, I’m the one most qualified to say so. We have to take him to the law.”
Bal asked, “Where?”
“Cincinnati,” Katherine said, “he’ll have no power there.”
Bruno Bauer stalked his way through the horses, disturbing them but taking their riders otherwise unaware, as he appeared virtually out of nowhere. Katherine stepped back by instinct alone as the hulking giant slumped past her and directly toward Francis.
At first, Katherine thought she saw Francis smile, but on his twisted face it was hard to tell. His drooling, spit-filled words sounded hopeful enough: “Bauer, thank Christ! Get me outta here, Bauer.”
But Bauer said nothing, going immediately to work, bending forward and hoisting Francis over his shoulder. Francis said, “Bauer?”
Without answering, Bauer turned to carry Francis away from the circle of horses. Francis looked at Katherine as Bauer carried him away, a smile on that contorted face, Katherine could see it quite clearly.
But Bauer was not carrying Francis to safety around the side of the burning building. Rather, he was heading into the building through the opened back door. Francis looked back as Bauer carried him toward the theater.
“Bauer?” Francis called out. “Bauer, what are you doing? What are you —? Bauer?” But Bauer marched straight into that burning theatre. “Bauer, stop! No, Bauer, no!” Francis began to buck and kick, pounding Bauer on his upper back with greater panic and desperation as he arrived at the burning doorway and walked straight in, Francis’ begging becoming a wordless series of screams, disappearing with the two figures as the roaring flames consumed them both. The roof began to fall in, the inferno raging as the night claimed its last two lives, hell claiming the bounty on that corrupted soul. But Bauer was cleansed in those same flames, redeemed for his murderous mistakes, his price paid in full.
Gideon, Horatio and Ida ran up to join Katherine and the others, Katherine burying her face in Gideon’s chest, his arms wrapping around her to comfort and love and embrace her against the heat and the horror and the sacrifice.
“It’s okay,” he whispered to her, voice low and calm and soothing. “It’s all over now, it’s all over.”
Katherine looked at that burning theatre ... absolute resolution. She thought of 1 Kings 16:18, ringing in the back of her memory. And it came to pass, when Zimri saw that the city was taken, that he went into the palace of the king's house, and burnt the king's house over him with fire, and died.
Gideon asked Katherine, “Are you all right?”
Katherine was torn between sorrow and relief, horror and happiness. All she could do was nod and offer a genuinely bittersweet smile. “You’re right, Gideon,” she said, glancing at the burning theatre. “It’s all over now.”
***
The story of what happened at the Caldwell Theatre was all the buzz around Franklin for weeks. First there were the funerals, so many that they were all handled at once, with Gideon officiating. The sheriff and deputy, Stanton and Sally, several other members of the troop; all had to be laid to rest.
Dale survived, found unconscious in the bushes just outside the theatre. He’d struck his head on a rock after the horse threw him to the side and trampled his attacker, his own price to pay for his part in events, according to God’s justice. The new doc kept him under care for a few days and it was touch and go until Horatio provided some of his goldenseal poultice. It was the same he’d used on Gideon before, after his festering arrow wound almost took his life during the rescue of Katherine, Ida and Dale from the clutches of Francis James.
Once he was back on his feet, Dale was profusely grateful and Horatio suitably modest. After regaining his strength, he went right to work tearing apart the burnt rubble of the theatre. Horatio volunteered to help with the task, and the two young men worked hard side-by-side for several weeks, other men joining the crew little by little.
Once the lot was almost cleared, Dale said to Horatio, “I think we work well together.” Horatio nodded. Dale went on, “With your bride-to-be consenting to sing here again, I thought, well, you might wanna ... partner up?” Horatio stood, listening. “We could make a real go of it, I think.”
Horatio gave it some thought, nodding as he raked down the grounds. “I’d like to be able to keep an eye on Ida,” he said finally, “and provide for our children.”
Dale nodded. “Indeed.”
Horatio kept considering the idea, shrugging. “We’d need funding, some help. But I think I know a party that might be interested. What about ... the books?” Dale reflected on what his theatre troop had done, the duplicity and the danger. But before he could assure Horatio otherwise, Horatio himself added, “Because I’d insist we keep doing it.”
Dale was surprised, and his high brows showed it. He extended his hand. “Partners?”
Horatio looked at that empty hand extended and all that it meant, to him, to Ida, to them all. Horatio extended his other hand and the two men shook, grasping tight. “Partners.”
***
Two years later, everyone in Franklin came out for the baptism of the first child of Horatio and Ida Brooks. Gideon fulfilled a lifelong dream, standing over his granddaughter, Beatrice, named after Gideon’s first wife. He dipped his hands in the holy water and formed the sign of the cross on the baby’s forehead, reciting the benediction, gazing into the face of his family’s future.
One of the faces, anyway.
Bal and Selma Brooks looked up with their new child Stewart, a boy born just a few months before. Neither had been so happy, and Selma couldn’t seem to stop smiling. Bal had been elected sheriff, and he was a decent and capable leader of the community. Former fur trapper, Ralph Farina, served as his capable deputy. They held a place of power and respect, and never abused either one. Horatio was going to be a fine and attentive older brother to little Stewart, Ida a loving sister and devoted mother to her own little Beatrice. The Brooks family had never been so whole, so full and so fulfilled. For all Selma’s concern that their alliance with the Wallace family was going to wrench them apart, she could see now that, through their own struggles and growth, and by God’s mercy, they were all stronger in their unity. Even more so than Selma could ever have dreamed.
Horatio stood near with Ida as Gideon blessed and baptized their daughter. He had never felt more like a man than with his beloved wife Ida beside him and their child being baptized in the way of their King, the Christ Jesus. Horatio knew then what his own journey had been for, and the new life that God presented him. The book he and Dale had finally gotten to market, under new assumed names as publishers, was a huge success. Uncle Tom’s Cabin soon became a phenomenon among abolitionists, stirring the anti-slave sentiment up to a fever pitch. Stanton had been right, and the book was both a classic in literature and in strategy. Horatio and Dale were determined to continue publishing books of that import under the theatre, and they did. With his place doing that and running the theatre, so close to his wife as she indulged her love of performing and would always do, Horatio knew he’d found his calling. He and his family would be staying in Franklin, for this generation at least; without doubt, without question, or reason either. Receiving love from each other, their families’, and God; and that was really all he ever wanted.
Even Margaret Mitchell had come to Franklin for her goddaughter’s baptism. After financing the new theatre’s successful return, Margaret had all the more reason to keep in touch with the Wallace / Brooks family, and she did so more and more as the years went on. Margaret didn’t live as long as anybody hoped, succumbing to cholera near to her fiftieth year, but she left all the money she could to the theatre, which would be renamed the Caldwell Manchester Theatre as a tribute.
But that was years to come. The moment of little Bea’s baptism was the center of everyone’s attention. Katherine, who looked up from the first row of pews, her belly round with pregnancy, was beaming, everybody said so and she felt it herself. Her baby would be a boy, she was certain, and he’d be a fine and strong son, taking after his father. She looked up at Gideon from that pew, so grateful to God for bringing her to him. They’d both been through so much, they’d earned the happiness they’d found with each other. And she knew that, but even more than that, it was by God’s grace that they were together. It was because their union was blessed, fated, written in the Book of Life since the first moment of time, and it would remain true until the last.
THE END
THANK YOU FOR READING!
I hope you enjoyed reading this book as much as I enjoyed writing it! If so, there is a sample of my first book, Mail Order Wife in the next chapter.
If you like it, make sure to look for Mail Order Wife in eBook and Paperback format at your favorite online book shops.
All the best,
Montana!